Stay safe!

Wishing all my friends up north, my very best!

Do what they tellya to do, okay? (I know, its hard to take advice from the likes of Chris Christie, but on this one occasion, listen to him!) There is actually snow in the North Carolina mountains before Halloween! That may be a first!

Love ya and stay safe.




~*~

Still at Sea, Storm Drenches East Coast (New York Times)

Hurricane Sandy grounds thousands of flights worldwide (CNN)

Hurricane Sandy speeds towards landfall (CBS News)

Damage from Hurricane Sandy could be catastrophic (USA Today)

Tracking hurricane Sandy: As storm 'zigs', it's also changing dramatically (Christian Science Monitor)

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Got links?

At left: a very colorful Page of Cups.



Lots of great reading out there, and I can barely keep up.

Here's a sampler of goodies you may have missed:

[] Arkansas Republican endorses death penalty for children (Raw Story) In case you wonder, candidate Charlie Fuqua got this straight from Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

So if you disagree, talk to God about it, okay?

[] Woo hoo, it's Conspiracy Theory time! Elections bring them out of the woodwork as little else does. AlterNet gives us 10 Conspiracy Theories Hatched by Conservative Fearmongers As Election Day Nears, which is entertaining enough that I hope to cover a couple of these on my upcoming radio show.

As a South Carolina Green Party member in good standing, my hands-down favorite is "The Green Plot to enslave the world":

Agenda 21, a little known and non-binding resolution adopted by the United Nations, is viewed by some on the right as an attempt to control the lives of people throughout the world by regulating everything they do. Amongst their paranoid fears is that Agenda 21 will cede U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. and a one-world government. The truth is that Agenda 21 is a set of principles to guide the development of practices to preserve a sustainable environment for future generations. It is entirely voluntary and was agreed to by the U.N. in 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush.

But to hear doomsayers like Glenn Beck put it, it will “suck all the blood out of [our communities], and we will not be able to survive.”

[] My friend JW finally had the daughter I foretold for her and her partner in their Tarot readings. Alright! Our hearty Deadhead congratulations go out to both of them, as well as lovely big sister LM (whom regular DEAD AIR readers may recall from THIS photo).

To celebrate, a look back at JW's reading, as well as a popular piece I wrote about the Tarot titled, How I learned to stop worrying and love the Tarot.

In addition, here is South Carolina Boy's post about my reading of his cards.

[] Anti-Muslim subway ads that sparked anger in New York are now popping up in D.C. (Huffington Post)

The ads, paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, are supposed to be posted in the U Street, Georgia Avenue, Takoma and Glenmont stations for one month.

The ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." They have been widely condemned as promoting Islamophobia.

[] Interesting piece titled Nerds and Male Privilege comes directly on the heels of Annalee Newitz's controversial The Great Geek Sexism Debate. BE INFORMED!

[] A heated exchange about disability and abortion starts with Disability, Prenatal Testing and the Case for a Moral, Compassionate Abortion, which brings an angry response from Tiger Beatdown: Lives worth living: Disability, abortion, and slipshod ethics (comments also mandatory reading). Response/Part II: Disability and Abortion, Part Two: Individual moral choices are not categorical imperatives.

Caution: Very heavy, emotionally-wrenching stuff, but it's what we all ought to be thinking about, as science marches on and genetic testing becomes increasingly commonplace and culturally accepted.

[] Historic Number of Women on Ballots Could Lead to Historic Year for Female Lawmakers (Reality Check) Thanks to my California-droog Barbara! (kiss)

Along these same lines, check out some FEMINIST HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

[] In further election news, our embarrassing Teabagger Senator, Jim DeMint, has decided to join Rick Santorum in backing Todd Akin for Senate in Missouri. I do find it interesting that Chris Christie wants no part of Akin, and has cut him loose.

Translation: Obviously, Christie has his eye on the proverbial Big Tent (higher office), while DeMint is intent on consolidating his power and influence on the right.

[] No list of links is complete without Glenn Greenwald. I especially recommend last month's one-two punch, CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news (subtitled: The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial)... and Conservatives, Democrats and the convenience of denouncing free speech (subtitled: Westerners love to decry censorship aimed at them by Muslims while ignoring the extreme censorship they impose on them). Both from the UK Guardian, and required reading for newshounds.

[] And finally, your long-overdue dose of cute: Panda mama nurses her little baby pandas. AIYEEE! SQUEEE!!! (((dead from cuteness)))

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Goodbye lovely Meredith!

Today I helped still another cool person move away from the upstate. :(

I have written before of how we lose all the cool people to places like Oregon, California, even Asheville. I am hopeful that someday, progressive, forward-thinking folks might make this area a real destination, rather than a pit stop.

I helped my Occupier-friend move back to California, and in turn, she blessed me with a bunch of amazingly wonderful old stuff she could not find room to pack: a Tibetan prayer wheel, several tarot decks (including the fabulous Haindl Tarot, Day of the Dead and Goddess Tarot), various sacred and voodoo oils, candles, linens, a sweater and jacket, a clay sculpture of Ariadne, a small brass Buddha, assorted office supplies and unused photo albums, an antique teddy bear and so much more.

It's been like Christmas for hippies.

I still wish she would stay. Greenville needs more enlightened souls who will hang around awhile. I have decided that building our Occupy Greenville chapter is one way to ensure this. We had a picnic on Saturday, and I was reminded of what wonderful folks we are lucky to have, and how tight-knit our group has become as a result.

Unfortunately, evil, bigoted, homophobic laws like the one currently being voted on in North Carolina today (denying equal marriage rights to gay couples) are one reason the cool people leave, as I have complained in this space so many times. The oppressive and backward presence of Bob Jones University, is still another. We have to keep fighting the repression, fighting the people who would take us backwards and spread damaging ignorance.

In the meantime, we do have a solid collective, and that is something to celebrate.

And to my dearest Meredith: Vaya Con Dios. We shall meet again.

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On The Future of Small Blogs

Small-blog traffic is down across the board, even as the 'big blogs' get more readers. It is increasingly obvious that blog traffic is like income: the 1% get it all, and us 99% puttering along down here at the bottom, are lucky to get any at all.

I used to get about 10,000 hits a month--even in 2010 when I averaged only about 2 posts a week. Now I am down to about 7000 or so. Every (small) blogger I know has reported similar trends.

How did this happen and why is it getting so much worse?

I blame Facebook, of course. And Twitter. And hypocritically, I am right there on both of them with everyone else. Twitter provides everybody with fabulous linkage and good reading, while Facebook provides the personal stories and socializing; the grease that keeps the online Dharma-wheel turning. What need is there for small-time local blogs? I find it interesting that the most hits I have received in the past year on one post (about 3000), was primarily because it was widely reproduced on Facebook.

Today, whilst interacting on a rather fiery, opinionated blog, it occurred to me. On this blog, where I have previously interacted with lots of people who disagree with me, I was suddenly called a concern troll and instructed to stop commenting. Wow, I thought. What the hell happened? Are people not allowed to simply disagree any more?

No.

Everyone must be FRIENDS, like on Facebook. You can't categorically disagree with the majority any more, or they will just tell you to shut up. Facebook has changed the terms of debate and what sort of discourse is acceptable. Thus, when you step "out of line" or express an unpopular opinion--you are dealt with much more harshly.

By contrast, Facebook threads are self-contained, for the most part. Nobody is totally "anonymous" and there can be no sock-puppets. Many of the participants in any given thread, will already agree with each other since they are from the same social circles, age-grouping and class. However, some of us have a LARGE and DIVERSE number of friends--which is far more likely if you are older (or have lived and worked in a variety of environments, as most older people have). People who hate each other and/or disagree on every single issue in the world, can suddenly and unexpectedly collide on the same thread. And predictably, all fired-up with "likes" (votes from people who agree with any given comment)-- they come out guns-a-blazing. Many Facebook people may not have any other online experience and it is entirely possible they have never before argued with people who disagree with them; thus, they promptly go into ideological apoplexy. This is marked by a lot of "you're crazy!" and "you can't be serious!" because they really do believe this. It's not rhetorical. You can tell they have not been exposed to real life ______ (fill in the blank). Atheists, anarchists, libertarians, Ayn Randians, communists, animal rights activists, whoever. They have heard of them, sure, but they've never met them before ... and they often respond by hitting the proverbial roof, flipping out and calling names.

For this reason (ideological apoplexy), you can easily "block" people on Facebook, so you don't have to SEE their awful opinions and be annoyed by them. This is diametrically opposite to blogular life, where you can't NOT SEE what you don't want to see, unless you are the owner of the blog in question.

And so, Facebook has tamed Blogdonia, made it more homogenous. In so many ways, cyberspace bullies made this happen, just like real-life bullies gave birth to gun control. Just when online culture seemed to be teetering on the edge of a free-for-all, suddenly, Facebook and similar social media promise ORDER FROM CHAOS.

Facebook and other self-contained, monitored sites became the safe place to meet. Who wants to be harassed by total strangers? When does "arguing" end, and actual harassment, hatred and stalking begin? (And who decides?)

I heartily recommend Julian Dibbell's fascinating post (which I originally read in the Village Voice, back in the day) titled A RAPE IN CYBERSPACE, which I commented on. (And I have finally learned how to link to just one comment in a thread, yay me!) I wrote:

The new wrinkle on [the] thousands of listservs (like on Google groups) is that some people are anonymous, some are pseudo-anonymous, and some provide their real names, leading to an imbalance of power among users. The anonymous people have the power to attack, those of us pseudo-anon or using real names, can’t attack phantoms in return.

...

It’s a pernicious environment… and one I think has given rise to Facebook, where people feel “safe” from anonymous assholes. Of course, a great deal of privacy is given over to FB, and that is the NEW problem… so the trolls greatly assisted the rise of internet surveillance and spying. They should be held accountable for that too.

Just as IRL, a rise in crime can lead to increased cops and fascism.

Another thread participant, Galactic Stumblebum (and what a great name!) added some important points. To say the least:

The issues are expectations and trust. People expect that when they are on the net, others will respect them as they would in RL. They trust in the sysops to enforce behavior just as they would trust the courts or the cops or mommy and daddy or Big Brother to enforce behavior in RL. They demand that someone hold their hands.

Perhaps Daisy is right. Perhaps the rise in Facebook popularity is a manifestation of the need for having one’s hand held. Personally, I do not know (I took one look at Facebook and decided that Sturgeon’s Revelation applied and haven’t been back since. I don’t have any fear of that corporation violating of my privacy because I avoid their product like the plague). But I don’t think so. I think rather that the rise in social network popularity is just that – social.

Nor do I believe that fascism is the culprit. No, I think that the rise in surveillance and the loss of privacy are the natural results of both the control freak propensities of the power elite, and the boohoo whinging of the carebears. People have been taught to expect someone to hold their hands, when they don’t get it, they are outraged – just as they are IRL when the cops do nothing. That makes the carebears call out for someone to do something, and the power elite is all too happy to oblige as it directly feeds their need for power and control.

It’s a cycle.

The major problem is the expectations. After all, reality is simply a mechanism for fulfilling expectations – change the expectations of what will be real, and you change what becomes real. That is perhaps the role of antisocial netizens – to bump the expections back into line when they stray too far down the path of fantasy.

As for griefers and trolls – well, let’s not fool ourselves; The real reason for laws and oversight is because the vast majority of humans really are primates barely out of diapers…in short, assholes.

And Mr Stumblebum, obviously very wise, gets the last word.

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Terri Leigh McKee 1958-2012

The Queen of Cups, from the Art Nouveau Tarot by Matt Myers.




Advice: When people ask you to stay in touch, stay in touch. Don't tell yourself "one of these days"--because you might Google them one day and find their obituary.

She came to my grandmother's funeral, whom she had loved. I promised her I would mail her copies of photos I had recently discovered, of our childhood... one of us standing next to an old Packard, another of us trying to make Kool-Aid, and still another, in front of a gaudy, awful, silver Christmas tree.

I never remembered to send them.

We grew apart... I became a crazy radical, and she remained devout and conservative. We had little in common as adults, and it was somewhat uncomfortable. You know how that is.

I still remember us singing together, "In the Year 2525" and laughing about the lyrics. We also sang it into the telephone for crank calls, which of course, you can't make any more. (The kids have no idea what they're missing.)

I had been thinking about her all week, possibly due to the death of Davy Jones. But it suddenly became pressing and important, as if I should see if I could try to find her. (She wasn't on Facebook or any of the other social media sites.) So, I did, and found this:

McKEE Terri L. McKee, age 53, passed away Monday, March 5, 2012. She was a member of St. Cecilia Catholic Church and a graduate of Westland High School, Class of '77'. Preceded in death by great-grandparents Charles and Sarah Bentz, grandparents Frank and Thelma Bragg and Adryenne and Arnold McKee, aunt Marilyn Isaac, and cousin Robert Riley. Survived by parents, John and Julia McKee; fiancee, Michael Woolfe; sister, Vicki (Mike) Davis; nephews, Nicholas Davis and Benjamin (Sara) Davis; great-nephew, Thomas Davis; along with aunts, uncles, cousins, loving relatives, and friends. Family will receive friends Sunday from 2-5 p.m. at THE TIDD FUNERAL HOME, 5265 Norwich St., Hilliard, OH 43026. A funeral service will be held 11 a.m. Monday at CONCORDIA LUTHERAN CHURCH, 225 Schoolhouse Lane, Columbus, OH 43228. Interment Sunset Cemetery.

All attempts at taking photos of photos have failed, so you will have to settle for my physical description: light light parakeet-blonde hair (100% natural) and extremely disarming pale blue eyes. Very feminine, small, thin, petite.

Aspasia offers the consoling thought that I thought of Terri because her soul was reaching out to me, to say goodbye. It is a comfort to think so.

And you folks reading: please don't forget my advice. Contact those old friends now. Don't put it off.

~*~

In the year 2525 - Zager and Evans



We got on a roller coaster once, at the Ohio State Fair, while this song was playing, full-blast. We screamed and sang along, all at once. One of those wonderful, great moments of childhood... perhaps she thought of it in her last moments, as I surely will.

Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees



Mr Green, he's so serene, he's got a TV in every room... we decided we liked Mr Green and wanted TVs in every room when we grew up, too.

Goodbye, old friend.

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Dead Air Church: 30 Years

It is my official AA anniversary, folks! Today marks my 30th year without alcohol. (gasp) I can hardly believe it myself. At left: an image from one of the late-60s AA comic books, titled "It happened to Alice."

I am no longer a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, for a variety of reasons. (I touched on some of my issues with AA here and here.) But I still credit the organization with saving my life. Nothing else would have worked for me. The very aspects of AA that are so harshly criticized now, such as the pseudo-cultish environment, are the very things I most needed. My ongoing druggie-party-atmosphere had always provided me with 'friends'--and consequently, when I cleaned up, I needed "new playmates and playgrounds" to take their place... or I was going to run into big trouble. Immediately. The social environment of AA was crucial.

I remember once having the vivid sensation of having jumped from a window on a very, very high floor... and inexplicably, soft, loving hands, dozens of hands, caught me and brought me safely to earth. Often, when I think of AA, I have this sensation, this vision, that I will never forget, of all the hands reaching out to catch me.

Sometimes it makes me cry, because I did not deserve it. Not at all.

It was amazing that this should happen to me, that these loving, kind hands should catch me after all I had done. This is what Christians call Grace. I deserved to crash through the concrete, and yet... I was spared.

It is impossible to come through such an experience unchanged and unscathed. My spiritual curiosity began then, generously mixed with survivor's guilt: Why have I been spared, when other good people were not? As I would hear (ever more often, it seemed) of famous and nonfamous addicts dying (page down here, for my musings about John Belushi, the first famous addict to die after I became sober), I would experience almost dizzying gratitude (and accompanying relief) that I had stopped when I did.

The gratitude has never abated. Perhaps that is key.

~*~

Recently in Feminist Blogdonia, there was a huge uproar over a controversial, confessional post, written by a popular male feminist, about violence against women he had committed while still using. This didn't surprise me, but it surprised, shocked, and horrified many others. And from their shock, I learned an important lesson: I had intended to write a longer piece for my 30-Year anniversary. I wanted to tell a harrowing story, since it underscores my gratitude; it makes it very clear that I was in crisis, and how far I have come.

And yes, I have a few I could tell.

I now know that such stories, stories of pain and addiction, stories of insanity, stories of possible death, near death and death itself, need to be kept secret and/or only shared with people we know well and deeply trust. Online is not the place, as Hugo discovered. And that's too bad, isn't it? But I am glad Hugo went their first. As a result, I certainly won't.

And so, I shall leave it to your imagination ... with the help of a few movies.

Warning: these video clips tell the truth.


And a very happy anniversary to me! :)

~*~

In this clip from Trainspotting, Ewan MacGregor is in drug withdrawal, hallucinating and haunted by various dead friends, including the baby that died in his apartment (because they were too high to feed her).

Here we learn the important lesson that guilt can become actual monsters that follow you around.



At the end of Clean and Sober--Michael Keaton realizes what the film audience already knows:



From Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, here is Samuel L Jackson as "Gator", with the late Ossie Davis and the incomparable Ruby Dee:



And we end with two trailers from Requiem for a Dream, the best and most honest movie ever made about addiction:

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Kate Schulte 1951-2011

Some people simply radiate goodness... you can even get drunk and barf on their nice rug and they say ohhh, that is nothing. When you reconnect with them years later, they never mention the rug, and instead tell you how wonderful you are. They impart their special magic to all of those around them. These are very rare, beautiful souls on this earth.

We have lost one.

Goodbye, dearest Kate.

~*~

SCHULTE, Kate "Kathaleen Beth" Schulte, beloved wife, mother, sister, aunt, and friend, left our company on September 15 from an apparent heart attack at the age of 60. Kate was born in Wichita, KS, and settled in Columbus, OH, in 1975. Her earliest work for justice was with farmworker organizers and the Columbus Tenants Union. In 1984, she met her swoon-unit, Michael Vander Does, on a memorable trip to the Kentucky Derby. Allen Ginsberg was a guest at their engagement party in July 1985 and they married a few months later. She loved and cared for her stepdaughters, Nicole and Naima Vander Does, as if they were her own. She loved to travel. The Yucatan, Italy, and New Orleans were favorite destinations. She attended 17 Jazzfests, seven Kentucky Derbies, and too many ComFests to count. She was a graduate of The Ohio State University College of Law, after which she became a well-known civil rights attorney. Perhaps her proudest legal work was on the Brunet firefighter sex discrimination case. A remembrance will be held at Ray's Living Room, 17 Brickel St., Columbus, OH, on Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 6 p.m., for her family and friends to celebrate her beautiful life.

From: Columbus Dispatch

~*~

I got on a bus once, drug-addled, and Kate was there. I meandered on back to sit next to her... I didn't even ASK if I could sit there. I told her I was all messed up on drugs.

"Well, you don't look like it!" she whispered, conspiratorially. And then she started telling me about her law book. I remember that it sounded very cool and interesting.

She reminded me, "Isn't this your stop?" She was right! Without Kate, would have ended up in Worthington or somewhere.

What I remembered, when I heard the news of her passing, was her warm, bright smile that day, when I sat next to her. She made even some silly druggie feel like the most important human being in the world.

So many people recall the warm, inclusive smile, and how it made them feel.

~*~

Yippies regularly crashed parties given by various important liberals and lawyers, which we loved to do. Go ahead, try to throw your poor lefty relations out of the party! (Sometimes they did.) We will talk trash about you and call you rich!

It was a game: "Do you think they'll let us in?"

But not at Kate's party: "Oh, that's fine, I love the Yippies. Somebody has to bring some controversy, don't they?!" (Was that a dig at the boring liberals?) She warmly invited us in, plied us with cheese and wine and introduced us to the well-heeled Democrats. She seemed to enjoy knowing scruffy anarchists, and also seemed to quietly enjoy ruffling those rich liberals a bit.

Official Yippie verdict on Kate: What a great person!

~*~

On Facebook, I told her, you know you are old when you are friending the people you used to babysit. She loved that. And it was via Facebook that I reconnected with a beautiful soul, and then lost her, in a year's time. And ohhhh my, it does hurt.

I've written about the modern phenomenon of experiencing death so up-close and personal via Facebook, and how it is now turning into a common occurrence. I hope this grief will not also become commonplace, but then again, perhaps it will serve to make us treasure every minute that much more.

As Kate would have done.

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Dead Air Church: Our Facebook era

Meditations today concern the rise of our social networking.

I was asked a question in response to my post about the late Ben Masel (in one of the comments later eaten by Blogger): Did I have any contact with Ben in recent years? And this made me think about The Rise of Facebook.

I had only re-established contact with Ben on FB rather recently. And far too soon, he passed away. It was painful, more painful than if I'd heard about his death at a remove. Hearing about memorial services, mourning friends and Ben's surviving daughter in "real time" was somehow more disturbing than if I hadn't.

I suddenly realized that Facebook has changed everything, including (most especially?) our interior landscape.

Remember how it was to "fall out of touch" with someone? To eventually lose contact completely? It just happened. In fact, let me be clear: it always happened, unless that someone was especially dear and precious. (And how many people are, really?) The meaning of the old-school Christmas card, for many of us, was what Facebook is now: a way to keep in touch and stay up to date. If you weren't on the Christmas card list--no known address, return to sender--well, that was that.

The funky guy who told the great jokes on your job; the pleasant lady who brought the children cookies at Sunday School; Ben Masel, who taught me to be a Yippie... teachers, co-workers, ex-spouses, ex-neighbors... whatever happened to ---? Now, we can keep in touch with them all.

So to speak.

And are we really "in touch"? I guess so, since we can look in on them and see what's happening, or at least see what they want us to know is happening. We can see how they look, where they live, and what they find important enough to mention.

Falling out of touch? Losing contact? Well, you never have to let that happen again.

That is... jarring, to those of us who grew up that way. And what does it mean, that future generations will never know what that is like?

Or will they? Will there always be the Facebook holdouts, the deleters of accounts? The people who simply 'disappear'? Such an act will now take on added significance; it is now deliberate. Before Facebook, it was just the way of the world. And now? It will seem suspicious, as if one is purposely, even determinedly, anti-social.

Maybe it's a sign of being an old fuddy-duddy, but I am glad the various addled twists and turns of my life are not available for public consumption. Certain periods of my life (hardline feminism, early sobriety, the dreaded pseudo-Opus Dei period) are somewhat embarrassing to me now, and I am glad I didn't (couldn't!) broadcast any of that stuff. How could I have explained it? Buddhism holds that there is no "I" or actual self, while Facebook enshrines that same nonexistent self to a fare-thee-well.

If I was unable to completely escape or obscure aspects of my past, would I instead embrace them with verve? Would I change as quickly and easily as I have changed so many times in my life, or would I be even more committed to a particular lifestyle as part and parcel of my identity?

If "hard-partying" became an iron-clad part of my identity, would I have entered recovery at the relatively young age of 24? Or would it be even easier, since a thriving online scene beckons from that corner also? (Do the hard-partiers defriend the people who enter recovery? Vice versa? Admittedly, I have no idea.) If I had totally ensconced myself with Opus Dei-like commandos, would I have ventured out to hear what the Buddhists have to say?

When my daughter moved to Texas, she didn't leave her friends behind. I often think back to what a comfort that would have been for me, those times I uprooted myself and nearly died from homesickness.

And then again, there is Gatsby, the quintessential American character. We re-create ourselves throughout our lives, in numerous ways, large and small. Is Facebook making Gatsby more or less possible and is that a good thing?

Just some random Sabbath thoughts. And what do you think?

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Plain(s) Feminist R.I.P.

I have tried several times over the past couple of days, to write a decent obit for my friend, Plain(s) Feminist. Her blog is listed below, not updated since February. I had not known that her breast cancer returned, or I would have called, written, anything. Our modern life rushes on, and it stuns us when someone is here today, gone tomorrow, in a scant six or seven weeks. Say what? But, but... she was so vital, so funny, so real, so aware, so present.

And now, she is not.

When I heard, cried my heart out. Got to work, sobbed there too. Good lord, Daisy, get a grip.

I have realized that my various existential crises are all bound up with death, my fear of death and my anger at death for taking the wrong people. I just wrote about awful individuals like Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich... they are still in this world and beautiful, kind, selfless Plain(s) Feminist (herein referred to as PF) is gone. This is not justice; this just makes me so upset. I ask God, as I often do: Excuse me, but WHAT IS THAT SHIT?!? I never get an answer, just the reminder that sooner or later, you, me, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and everyone else in the world, will hear from the Grim Reaper as well. But why so soon... why interrupt her work, her social activism, her writing, her teaching, her motherhood, her PLANS?

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

~*~

Once upon a time, I was devastated and confused beyond telling, and there are times I unwillingly return to this state when I cruise around Feminist Blogdonia. I once had many friends there, and happily, proudly populated my blog-roll with them. Most are still there, even as they have exiled me. A major fallout on a fairly-large email list, left me persona non grata among many of these people... all (but one) much younger than me. Most had college degrees (even advanced degrees) and there was no question that I was waaaay out of my league. Blundering in with my uncouth redneck sensibility and using the wrong language was bound to happen. When it did, and I was tarred and feathered in short order (leaving me dazed and confused, even now), PF was one of the people who comforted me and explained things (see link above). This is part of being a woman, this is also a struggle of feminism... that women should learn to work together. It is not surprising that we don't know how; that instead, we savage each other. We have been raised to do that, after all. She wrote to me, "When a friend of mine tells me I've misunderstood her, I listen to that." And she did.

How precious to find the person who listens. Her students were so lucky.

I can't add much to what others have written... please read Kittywampus, since she knew PF better than I did and has also collected obituary-links. Some have used her given name and some have not, and I am confused about whether that is acceptable, so when in doubt, I don't. But other people have, and if you are in the Women's Studies field, you may have known her. Please go check out the links and pay your respects.

I once told PF that I believed the advent of Women's Studies was the death of activist feminism, an (honest) opinion I lob every now and then, to see what the professors will say. (It's a dead horse, so I no longer beat it, but I did for years.) Most of them have just sneered back, huh UH! and shook their heads forcefully, nary missing a beat. But none took the charge seriously. When I said it rather offhandedly to PF, she emailed me specifically and asked me to elaborate, and kindly asked for evidence. Wow, really?! Nobody every did that before, so I chronicled some of my decades-long observations. She emailed me and said yes, those are great points (!) and we need to CONNECT women's studies to activism, always, or it is just an academic thing, no different or any more enlightening or important than other academic pursuits. And in her life, she did this... she belonged to all kinds of activist groups and also supported many activist women. She walked the walk and talked the talk. And how RARE is that? (Unfortunately, this brings me back to my anger that the rare jewels are taken from us, while the baddies are here in full force--gahhh!!!) PF asked me to have patience with the Women's Studies grads and see them as having been "prepped" by her and others, for the activism that I might teach them... a hand-off, if you will. The idea that we were working together was such a radical one, such a great concept. We would all, gladly, work for PF, and make sure her newly-radicalized students fulfilled her dreams.

PF leaves a life-partner and son.

Goodbye, my friend. We should all have your zeal, your energy, your drive, your love, your essential decency and morality as applied to women... well, your feminism. Just plain feminism.

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