Category: Writing

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Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism

Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism

author: Victoria Clark
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2009/02/08
date added: 2009/02/09
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, religion, sociology
review:
Book is divided into two parts: the history of Christian Zionism from the Reformation in England to 1948, and a survey of modern American Christian Zionism.

For me, the first part was full of new information, weird twists of history, strange characters (a Venn diagram of this book & Eating the Sun shows Joseph Priestly as the one person in the union!) over the history of both Britain & the US. The second half has some new, but much that’s familiar to anyone who’s been following this part of foreign policy over the last 10 years.

It feels like what it is, too: a foreigner’s attempt to understand something deeply weird and totally American. (alas) She tries to have a gentle touch, but the underlying tone is OMGWTFBBQ crazy people! Not that I don’t sympathize, of course, and maybe I’m projecting a bit. Because yes, OMG teh crazy. I really really really hope that we get to an actually rational foreign policy in re: the Middle East sometime soon!

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Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

author: Langston Hughes
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1959
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/10
date added: 2009/02/05
shelves: history, own, poetry
review:
I know it’s probably corny to go back to this right after Obama’s election, but I needed something really different from Rukeyser, and I actually don’t read enough guy poets! So far, enjoying his use of language, the shifting dictions and rhythms. (Also, interesting to find stars & notes from when I read this in college.)

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What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception

What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception

author: Scott McClellan
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2009/01/15
date added: 2009/02/05
shelves: autobiography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
I read this book because of The Big Sort: I wanted to open-mindedly read something from a very different viewpoint from my own.

I found McClellan’s writing voice engaging and friendly, but I constantly wondered how much dissembling he was doing throughout. What did he really know? He reads as being furious at Karl Rove, because Rove (according to McClellan) lied to him…is that really so? It wouldn’t surprise me, but neither would the opposite.

For me, the book focused around 3 events or phases: McClellan’s early engagement in politics, as the son of the conservative Democrat mayor of Austin; the Valerie Plame affair, and Hurricane Katrina. Plame he treats as a marker for all the lying and hedging before the Iraq war. (Did he really always think it was a bad idea?) Katrina he treats as a public relations disaster, which echoes Bush’s last press conference.

Some of the details have faded after several weeks, but I can definitely say that it’s worth a read just to get a view from the other side that is relatively thoughtful about the years just past.

(Also, I kept reading the title in my head as What the F*** Happened?)

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sunday scribblings: miscellaneous

a box of what’s left over
after sorting

a stack of post-its
curling and yellow
(not with age, just as they are)
and the cryptic scrawls
phone message
half-formed grocery list
idea for code or poem

plants haphazard
unlabeled, unknown
jumbled in the bed
at the far end of the garden
to wait under leaf
rain, an occasional snow
until spring brings
inspiration and energy

after the model is assembled
three Legos at the bottom
of the plastic bag
not enough to use
for anything
toss them in the tub

a box of what’s left over
after the files are tidy
and the drawers are clean
which is to say
a dozen projects
tiny to infinite
belonging to nothing else
a form, a catalog
a phone number
markers of larger things
I wanted to do
and did not make time for
or that I should have done
but did not want to
or was afraid I could not finish.

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sunday scribblings: holiday memories

I realized last night that I need to start writing poetically and/or fictionally about where I’m at right now with the house and other things before I can go on to any other stories.

I’m not sure if I’m at all happy with this particular poem, but I’m glad I tried for it. Maybe I’ll come back in a few days and edit.

***

in a stack of boxes in the back of a closet
is one marked “XMAS” in black sharpie
in his clear & tidy printing

in the attic of my mother’s house
is a box 3 feet square, at least

this one is smaller
small enough to pick up
light enough to carry easily

no glass balls in this box
we’ve never had a tree big enough
to need them

but in a silver box from the Gap
that must’ve held a gift once
4 matched clear glass ornaments
from a friend, from the year
that I stuffed a full-size tree
into a studio apartment

and from that same year
a similar number of starched lace snowflakes
and a single impossibly tiny
origami swan in pink paper

plus two brass ornaments
from my childhood
engraved with my name and the year
1977, 1978

the rest of the box
is unopened lights
a handmade plaid treeskirt
3 dreidels
too much needlework
from my mother

also an amazing quilted table runner
in luscious greens and reds
gold and silver both
also from my mother

a stocking from my aunt
in the shape of a Victorian boot
pink and green, my name in looping white
it looks lonely pinned to the wall
with a pushpin
over the table where the presents are stacked

I keep forgetting to go looking
for a stocking for him, something
special that can go back into the box
come January

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found haiku

streamers of fog
threading thru tall grass
wreathing construction notices

on the edge of the bike lane
a raven
its heart splayed out

the raven’s wing
crushed, pushed aside
into the bike lane

in the tunnel
of midsummer trees
a flash of sky

fog curls
scotts broom, grass, shrubs
yellow construction sign

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haiku

dark outlines of firs
against rose-gold eastern clouds
reflected in the ice-lined pond

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cleaning my desk

I found this haiku from…February? March? on a post-it while I was cleaning.

vista through
tattered blackberry bramble
green and sandtrap