The Furious Spinner

Okay. This is the last post until...my next post. Truly I want to take a few days off, but this Karl Rove thing has me steaming. I've got to get some perspective. I wanted to see what the corporate media was doing, so I turned on the TV. Argh! They talked about it on Larry King (yes, I know, I apologize) for 15 minutes before devoting the rest of the program to some murder in Aruba (I guess, I certainly didn't keep watching). But this seems to be the Repulsican strategy: Rove didn't do anything illegal; everyone knew Plame worked for the CIA; if Joe Wilson was so concerned about his wife's identity, why did he do the op-ed article in the first place (what!!!!!!); the American public is too concerned with the Supreme Court nominee and the London bombings to care about this little tempest (in other words: 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11). You have GOT to be kidding me.

Karl Rove was attempting a political assassination of Joe Wilson because Wilson had the audacity to call into question the "facts" about WMD in Iraq. In this country, we don't destroy or kill our opponents. In this country, people are allowed to disagree with one another without any kind of assassination. What Rove did was wrong. Even if it was not illegal, he was wrong. Period. Can these conservative christian Repulsicans really believe this crap they're saying about Rove? (I'm sure he wrote the talking points for them.)

By the way, you really must watch the White House press briefings if you can. Finally, the reporters are asking questions. I don't know how long it will last but Monday and Tuesday were something to behold. I have been writing here about the Plame leak since October 2003. It's about time we see some action on this story. The Emperor and his fashionistas lie all of the time, but it seems they’ve been caught with their knickers down.

Bill Frist was talking today about how unprecedented it was that Bush was consulting with Senators on a Supreme Court nominee.

Mario said, "Is that true?"

I said, "Is Bill Frist's mouth open? Well then, he's most likely lying. Of course it's not true! It's in the constitution. Advise and consent, advise and consent, advise and fucking consent!"

"Who do you think lies more?" Mario asked. "The Democrats or the Republicans?"

Softball question, darling.

"The Repulsicans," I said. "The Democrats feel too guilty when they lie, so you can tell. The Repulsicans claim they're doing God's work so that gives them license to lie. Look at Ollie North. He's not ashamed of lying to Congress."

Please, America, please. Don't let them get away with this crap. Stop them, stop them, stop them. I really don't think the average American is as stupid as the Emperor and his fashionistas think they are. Prove them wrong!

I'm much more calm now than I was. I was screaming earlier. When Clinton said it depends on what your definition of is is, I thought he was being an asshole. And he was lying about nothing; he was lying about stuff that wasn't any of our business. The Emperor With No Clothes and his fashionistas lied about WMD and people DIED.

It's just too much.

As Mario said to me today, "Breathe, Kim, breathe."

*sigh*

On the absolute upside from all that crap, I had a great time today hugging on my sweetheart. I went out to my garden and harvested some delicious greens. I also cut some yarrow from the flower beds out front. This is the yarrow I planted almost exactly a year ago from a pot. It is about four feet tall now, competing for sunlight with the daisies growing all around it. Wildflowers. I planted it last summer during a full moon when I was bleeding. I haven't bled since December. Holding the wise blood within my body, some say, although I don't feel any wiser. Now some of the yarrow is hanging upside down, drying, hooked to my hazel tree chair. It's shaped like a heart—the chair—and the man who cut the tree and created the chair told me he had a conversation with the tree before getting the branches for the chair. I seldom sit in it, but when I do I feel like a queen.

Breathe. Breathe.. Breathe. . . .


(In the car on the way to Maryhill.)

It's funny how some things can happen without all our frenzied effort. Mario and I went to Maryhill Museum on Sunday. We thought the Native American dances were going to be there; they weren't. I've written about this place many times before. It's about an hour from our house, in the high desert.


(The hills to the north of the museum; the sculpture garden is to the right, although you can't really see it.)

I went to the outdoor sculpture garden first, while Mario ran inside the museum. I circled around to the spot that was infamous one summer: a HUGE bronze sculpture of an anatomically correct well-endowed centaur held up a naked woman. The spot has always seemed bare since they left. This year, Planting Woman by Sandra Richardson crouched to the ground.



Mario joined me and we walked around the outdoor sculpture garden. This year they had many bird sculptures. Mario said I had an owl quality as I stood next to this owl, The Night Watchman by Leon White.



A huge steel construction of two herons on a sunken ship was quite striking, especially in this oasis in the desert.



We went to the information panel to make certain we had seen all of the eleven statues in this area before we left. We had missed Bird Tree by Arnie Garborg. On the info panel, it looked like a tree with birds in it. Mario and I walked around the garden and didn't see it. I decided I'd go into the museum and find out where it was. It was a bit of a walk, and I didn't really want to go ask. But I didn't want to miss the sculpture. I thought, "Just ask the garden where it is." I shrugged and walked back to the garden and stood at the edge of it and asked if it could show me where the sculpture was. I don't know who "it" was. I was just tired and didn't feel like walking around this huge place in the heat and the wind.

At first, I heard, "It's not here." You know, that constant yakking in your head. Then I heard, "It's over there." Which it wasn't. Disgusted with all the noise in my head, I breathed deeply, all was silent in my mind for a moment, and I turned to my left—where I had looked before—and there it was, perfectly camouflaged but now perfectly visible. Mario followed my gaze and saw it, too. I thought of that probably apocryphal story of the Natives not being able to see the Spanish ships at first because the ships and the Spanish weren't part of what they knew, what was familiar to them, so they were essentially invisible for a time. How much in our lives is invisible to us? How much do we miss because of the chatter? I was glad I hadn’t missed the bird tree. And I had seen it without much of a struggle at all.



Ahhhhhhhh!

Just now Mario took me outside to look at the moon—half-moon—surrounded by black clouds. He hugged me from behind and kissed my cheek.

Breathing, breathing, breathing . . .

I'm going to go sit in my chair for a spell and savor this day that was mostly spent in the arms of my sweetheart, in the company of yarrow, and who knows what else. Someone else is taking care of Karl Rove. I've done my bit for the day.

May You Breathe in Beauty!

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.