To contact us Click HERE
The First Story to catch a gleam in my eye was “Black Women in Europe™: Power List 2011 – A List of Our Own”.
WOW! I was awestruck by the list of accomplished black women in Europe, and the fact that they identify themselves as such, “Black Women in Europe”.
In an age where there is a paucity of black women role models, these are the cream of the crop.
These are tough acts to follow, Girls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOSUNhMCJlM&feature=channel_video_title
RECOMMENDED: TO FWISD All Girls Academy
27 Haziran 2012 Çarşamba
ALERT: Texas AG push for Voter ID law for 2012 Election
To contact us Click HERE
& Texas Redistricting assails Voting Rights Act
A Media Watch Report by Eddie Griffin
The conspiracy to retain political power by voter suppression cannot be summed up in a sentence of two. It takes observation over an extended period of time to discern the pattern and gather the proof.
Prelude: The Texas Attorney General seems insistent and in a hurry to implement a series of voter suppression laws, including a voter ID law, before the general election in 2012.
Texas attorney general asks federal court to OK voter ID law, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 24, 2012
Attorney General Greg Abbott asked a federal court Monday to clear the way for the state's voter ID law to go into effect without waiting for a Justice Department decision on whether the law discriminates against minorities.
The Obama administration is hostile to laws such as the one passed last year in Texas that require would-be voters to show an approved photo identification card before getting a ballot, Abbott said.
Abbott filed suit in a Washington court against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department...
"Texas should be allowed the same authority other states have to protect the integrity of elections," Abbott said. "To fast-track that authority, Texas is taking legal action in a D.C. court seeking approval of its voter identification law."
[NOT SO FAST, Cowboy]
Minority groups have complained that the law is intended to discourage voting among the poor and elderly, who are less likely to have a driver's license. In 1965 Congress created the Voting Rights Act, and the section requiring Texas to seek pre-clearance for new election laws, because Texas and other Southern states enforced laws designed to keep minorities from voting.
NOTE: Herein is one in a pattern of voting suppression laws sweeping the nation. The excuse for passing voter identification laws is based upon false fear that, somehow, undocumented immigrants would illegally participate in the elections.
It smells, but it sells. And many states have implemented a rash of new laws like those in Texas, requiring additional proof of citizenship, such as driver’s licenses or pictured IDs.
Also, cropping up are new redistricting lines that disenfranchise minority communities that cannot muster passage under the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Rights Act.
Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott is asking the courts, in both cases, to allow Texas to implement its rules in the interim, in time for the 2012 primaries; and then, if there are violations, let the courts sort it out later. By then, later would be too late.
The logic of this thinking would be like asking the courts to permit the rape, and then sort out the damage later, after the election, after elected parties are seated.
WOULD THE COURTS ALLOW HISTORY TO REPEAT ITSELF?
So far, neither the federal district court, nor the U.S. Supreme Court, have allowed the legislature’s plan to go forward, unchallenged and unabated And, the third court in the district of Washington, D.C. only agreed to hear the controversy because there was obviously something wrong with the legislature’s map, as drawn.
This legal challenge is currently going into its sixth day of hearings, as of this writing.
WHERE DO WE STAND NOW? SCOTUS threw out both district court proposed map and that of the legislature. The State of Texas would have opted for the Court to allow its map to serve as interim for the 2012 elections. But as it stands, there are no maps, no established districts, and no set primary date. Everything is still up in the air.
HOW DID WE GET HERE? By gerrymandering, this minority-majority district was stolen by hook and crook, at the hand of former GOP House leader Tom DeLay, who conspired and illegally laundered corporate money from one hand to hand, to be used to gain a majority in the House seats in the U.S. Congress. He was later convicted and imprisoned, but the ill-gotten gain was never recovered, and our district never rectified.
[Enclosed are attachments to the full reference transcripts. Below is a summary.]
Posted Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"This is an abuse of power," Tom DeLay said Wednesday after an Austin jury found him guilty of politically inspired money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The former U.S. House majority leader and power broker from Sugar Land has maintained that the charges against him were politically motivated, and he vowed to continue fighting on appeal.
The verdict came more than five years after DeLay was indicted for his actions in helping the campaigns of seven Republicans running for the Texas House in 2002. Six of them were elected, helping the GOP achieve its first majority in that body since Reconstruction.
The Legislature, with DeLay's guidance, then pushed through a redistricting plan that helped Texas Republicans gain more seats in Congress.
Gerrymandering of voting districts for political advantage is wrong. It's distasteful. It's a deliberate distortion of the electoral process. But it is not illegal -- sadly, it's even expected as a way for the party in power to maintain or increase its power.
But the case against DeLay was not about redistricting. It was about money and the way he used money in the political process.
So when DeLay decried "the criminalization of politics" after the verdict came in, he was saying that it's wrong to accuse someone of a criminal act for doing something that's accepted in the world of politics.
NOTE: Translate “criminalization of politics” into a state’s right defense. In other words, though the gerrymandered districts were created by a crime, it could not be undone. Therefore, we had to live with the consequence. Even more, the State defends the ill-gotten gain in court.
In December 2005, the Washington Post reported, Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo" uncovered by the newspaper. The document, endorsed by six Justice Department attorneys, said “the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts.”
Posted Saturday, May 14, 2011, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial
All it takes is a glance at the proposed redistricting map for the Texas Senate to know, especially as it pertains to Tarrant County, it is just plain wrong.
The 104,703 residents of southeast Fort Worth, Forest Hill and Everman, 78.2 percent of them black or Hispanic, would be pulled out of Sen. Wendy Davis' District 10 and moved to Sen. Brian Birdwell's 80.7 percent Anglo District 22, which extends south beyond Waco.
"What were they thinking?" jumps to mind. "How could they be so stupid? Isn't that a blatant violation of the Voting Rights Act, and won't the Justice Department or the courts throw this out immediately?"
But give it some time. Remember that the people who came up with this plan are definitely not stupid...
Anyone who watched the 2003 redistricting drama directed by then-U.S. House Majority Leader and now convicted felon Tom DeLay knows the people who do this sort of thing are both smart and crafty.
Republicans painted a target on Democrat Davis the moment she beat one of their valued insiders, 20-year legislator Kim Brimer, in the 2008 general election. Davis and everyone else who follows local politics knew that, this year, she would be hit with a redistricting blast that would make it very hard for her to win again.
That means separating her from the people who delivered the votes she needed to topple Brimer. And that would be the minority communities southeast of downtown and on the near north side.
NOTE: The minority communities southeast of downtown referenced above is us, the core community of U.S. District 33. It is the most focused upon district in the case that went before the Supreme Court and back to the District Court. It is this district that is the more likely to be successfully challenged against the state’s plan.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT about U.S. District 33? Property records dating back to the 1870s will show this area was owned and occupied by mostly African-Americans. It is the seat of the historic Colored Downtown area and just to the east was Cowanville, now Stop Six.
The north side portion of District 33 was occupied by Tejano Mexicans and Native Americans. In the 1870s, Fort Worth was still referred to a fort city, and many indigent people in the area and freedmen found refuge under the banner of federal Union troops.
But there has always been a reminisce of the Confederacy holding stronghold over minorities’ right to vote in the area, which was why blacks formed alliances with their brown, red, and white neighbors to elected representatives that best suited their collective interest. But increasingly dividing this political districts into smaller and smaller pieces, Tom DeLay succeeded into splitting the community into Five Easy Pieces scattered all over creation.
Posted Saturday, May 14, 2011, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial
The new map shows the southeast's black neighborhoods going to Birdwell and the north side Hispanic areas going to District 12, represented by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound. Davis is left with a district that is even more white and Republican.
"Partisan greed," she says of the plan, promising a court battle.
But it's not about her, she says. It's about "the human impact of the decisions being made." Fort Worth's minority neighborhoods "will no longer have the opportunity to elect someone who will be that voice for them."
She's right: It is all about the voters. And those minority neighborhoods would be swallowed up and outnumbered by rural Republicans.
The Voting Rights Act is harsh on discrimination by redistricting, but standards of proof are high, or at best hard to pin down.
Davis will have to show that minority groups in her district are large and geographically compact, that they are politically cohesive and vote as a bloc, and that Anglos vote in a bloc in numbers high enough that they usually defeat minorities.
Having only been elected in District 10 once, a narrow victory amid heavy turnout for Democrat Barack Obama's presidential bid, she has no history there to fall back on.
She'll have to show how a new, compact district could be drawn with new population numbers.
There's a long road ahead for this redistricting plan. It will be a difficult one for Davis, and whether she's right at first glance won't really matter once the court fight begins.
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 04, 2012
BY LINDA P. CAMPBELL
Texas' Republican leaders dislike the Voting Rights Act.
No revelation there.
Republicans also supposedly despise having unelected "activist" judges supersede the will of elected representatives.
Heard that broken record.
But if the state's lawyers could entice the Supreme Court to use Texas redistricting as a tool for smacking down Section 5 of the act before the 2012 elections?
Read more… http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/04/3635125/texas-redistricting-brief-argues.html
COMMENTARY by Eddie Griffin
The Texas AG Gregg Abbott is not satisfied having the state locked up in three difference sets of courts. Now he goes after U.S. AG Eric Holder in another federal court and a demand for rush-rush judgment.
There should be a warning sign in Austin for Governor Rick Perry and his Attorney General, something to the effect about biting off more than a state can chew.
First, no matter how much they hate the 1965 Voting Rights Act, by seeking compliance and approval through the D.C., rather than the U.S. Justice Department, the state de facto acknowledge the legality of the Act and the validity of its provisions. Therefore, Texas prohibited itself from going after the Act, insofar as it cannot amend it original complaint.
Second, the map will change, but by how much, we do not know. It will most certainly not be like the state legislature’s map. In this respect, the State will lose something. It must concede more political turf to the minority communities.
Third, it crunch time for elections in Texas, and the issue of maps and voter identification are still unresolved. No candidate can get on the ballot without a map. The more pressure to get these issues resolved the less time and patience for more debate. And, after all, with Texas being Red as Hell, who cares if we ever vote in 2012, if they kill District 33?
A Media Watch Report by Eddie Griffin
The conspiracy to retain political power by voter suppression cannot be summed up in a sentence of two. It takes observation over an extended period of time to discern the pattern and gather the proof.
Prelude: The Texas Attorney General seems insistent and in a hurry to implement a series of voter suppression laws, including a voter ID law, before the general election in 2012.
Texas attorney general asks federal court to OK voter ID law, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 24, 2012
Attorney General Greg Abbott asked a federal court Monday to clear the way for the state's voter ID law to go into effect without waiting for a Justice Department decision on whether the law discriminates against minorities.
The Obama administration is hostile to laws such as the one passed last year in Texas that require would-be voters to show an approved photo identification card before getting a ballot, Abbott said.
Abbott filed suit in a Washington court against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department...
"Texas should be allowed the same authority other states have to protect the integrity of elections," Abbott said. "To fast-track that authority, Texas is taking legal action in a D.C. court seeking approval of its voter identification law."
[NOT SO FAST, Cowboy]
Minority groups have complained that the law is intended to discourage voting among the poor and elderly, who are less likely to have a driver's license. In 1965 Congress created the Voting Rights Act, and the section requiring Texas to seek pre-clearance for new election laws, because Texas and other Southern states enforced laws designed to keep minorities from voting.
NOTE: Herein is one in a pattern of voting suppression laws sweeping the nation. The excuse for passing voter identification laws is based upon false fear that, somehow, undocumented immigrants would illegally participate in the elections.
It smells, but it sells. And many states have implemented a rash of new laws like those in Texas, requiring additional proof of citizenship, such as driver’s licenses or pictured IDs.
Also, cropping up are new redistricting lines that disenfranchise minority communities that cannot muster passage under the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Rights Act.
Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott is asking the courts, in both cases, to allow Texas to implement its rules in the interim, in time for the 2012 primaries; and then, if there are violations, let the courts sort it out later. By then, later would be too late.
The logic of this thinking would be like asking the courts to permit the rape, and then sort out the damage later, after the election, after elected parties are seated.
WOULD THE COURTS ALLOW HISTORY TO REPEAT ITSELF?
So far, neither the federal district court, nor the U.S. Supreme Court, have allowed the legislature’s plan to go forward, unchallenged and unabated And, the third court in the district of Washington, D.C. only agreed to hear the controversy because there was obviously something wrong with the legislature’s map, as drawn.
This legal challenge is currently going into its sixth day of hearings, as of this writing.
WHERE DO WE STAND NOW? SCOTUS threw out both district court proposed map and that of the legislature. The State of Texas would have opted for the Court to allow its map to serve as interim for the 2012 elections. But as it stands, there are no maps, no established districts, and no set primary date. Everything is still up in the air.
HOW DID WE GET HERE? By gerrymandering, this minority-majority district was stolen by hook and crook, at the hand of former GOP House leader Tom DeLay, who conspired and illegally laundered corporate money from one hand to hand, to be used to gain a majority in the House seats in the U.S. Congress. He was later convicted and imprisoned, but the ill-gotten gain was never recovered, and our district never rectified.
[Enclosed are attachments to the full reference transcripts. Below is a summary.]
Posted Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"This is an abuse of power," Tom DeLay said Wednesday after an Austin jury found him guilty of politically inspired money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The former U.S. House majority leader and power broker from Sugar Land has maintained that the charges against him were politically motivated, and he vowed to continue fighting on appeal.
The verdict came more than five years after DeLay was indicted for his actions in helping the campaigns of seven Republicans running for the Texas House in 2002. Six of them were elected, helping the GOP achieve its first majority in that body since Reconstruction.
The Legislature, with DeLay's guidance, then pushed through a redistricting plan that helped Texas Republicans gain more seats in Congress.
Gerrymandering of voting districts for political advantage is wrong. It's distasteful. It's a deliberate distortion of the electoral process. But it is not illegal -- sadly, it's even expected as a way for the party in power to maintain or increase its power.
But the case against DeLay was not about redistricting. It was about money and the way he used money in the political process.
So when DeLay decried "the criminalization of politics" after the verdict came in, he was saying that it's wrong to accuse someone of a criminal act for doing something that's accepted in the world of politics.
NOTE: Translate “criminalization of politics” into a state’s right defense. In other words, though the gerrymandered districts were created by a crime, it could not be undone. Therefore, we had to live with the consequence. Even more, the State defends the ill-gotten gain in court.
In December 2005, the Washington Post reported, Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo" uncovered by the newspaper. The document, endorsed by six Justice Department attorneys, said “the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts.”
Posted Saturday, May 14, 2011, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial
All it takes is a glance at the proposed redistricting map for the Texas Senate to know, especially as it pertains to Tarrant County, it is just plain wrong.
The 104,703 residents of southeast Fort Worth, Forest Hill and Everman, 78.2 percent of them black or Hispanic, would be pulled out of Sen. Wendy Davis' District 10 and moved to Sen. Brian Birdwell's 80.7 percent Anglo District 22, which extends south beyond Waco.
"What were they thinking?" jumps to mind. "How could they be so stupid? Isn't that a blatant violation of the Voting Rights Act, and won't the Justice Department or the courts throw this out immediately?"
But give it some time. Remember that the people who came up with this plan are definitely not stupid...
Anyone who watched the 2003 redistricting drama directed by then-U.S. House Majority Leader and now convicted felon Tom DeLay knows the people who do this sort of thing are both smart and crafty.
Republicans painted a target on Democrat Davis the moment she beat one of their valued insiders, 20-year legislator Kim Brimer, in the 2008 general election. Davis and everyone else who follows local politics knew that, this year, she would be hit with a redistricting blast that would make it very hard for her to win again.
That means separating her from the people who delivered the votes she needed to topple Brimer. And that would be the minority communities southeast of downtown and on the near north side.
NOTE: The minority communities southeast of downtown referenced above is us, the core community of U.S. District 33. It is the most focused upon district in the case that went before the Supreme Court and back to the District Court. It is this district that is the more likely to be successfully challenged against the state’s plan.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT about U.S. District 33? Property records dating back to the 1870s will show this area was owned and occupied by mostly African-Americans. It is the seat of the historic Colored Downtown area and just to the east was Cowanville, now Stop Six.
The north side portion of District 33 was occupied by Tejano Mexicans and Native Americans. In the 1870s, Fort Worth was still referred to a fort city, and many indigent people in the area and freedmen found refuge under the banner of federal Union troops.
But there has always been a reminisce of the Confederacy holding stronghold over minorities’ right to vote in the area, which was why blacks formed alliances with their brown, red, and white neighbors to elected representatives that best suited their collective interest. But increasingly dividing this political districts into smaller and smaller pieces, Tom DeLay succeeded into splitting the community into Five Easy Pieces scattered all over creation.
Posted Saturday, May 14, 2011, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial
The new map shows the southeast's black neighborhoods going to Birdwell and the north side Hispanic areas going to District 12, represented by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound. Davis is left with a district that is even more white and Republican.
"Partisan greed," she says of the plan, promising a court battle.
But it's not about her, she says. It's about "the human impact of the decisions being made." Fort Worth's minority neighborhoods "will no longer have the opportunity to elect someone who will be that voice for them."
She's right: It is all about the voters. And those minority neighborhoods would be swallowed up and outnumbered by rural Republicans.
The Voting Rights Act is harsh on discrimination by redistricting, but standards of proof are high, or at best hard to pin down.
Davis will have to show that minority groups in her district are large and geographically compact, that they are politically cohesive and vote as a bloc, and that Anglos vote in a bloc in numbers high enough that they usually defeat minorities.
Having only been elected in District 10 once, a narrow victory amid heavy turnout for Democrat Barack Obama's presidential bid, she has no history there to fall back on.
She'll have to show how a new, compact district could be drawn with new population numbers.
There's a long road ahead for this redistricting plan. It will be a difficult one for Davis, and whether she's right at first glance won't really matter once the court fight begins.
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 04, 2012
BY LINDA P. CAMPBELL
Texas' Republican leaders dislike the Voting Rights Act.
No revelation there.
Republicans also supposedly despise having unelected "activist" judges supersede the will of elected representatives.
Heard that broken record.
But if the state's lawyers could entice the Supreme Court to use Texas redistricting as a tool for smacking down Section 5 of the act before the 2012 elections?
Read more… http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/04/3635125/texas-redistricting-brief-argues.html
COMMENTARY by Eddie Griffin
The Texas AG Gregg Abbott is not satisfied having the state locked up in three difference sets of courts. Now he goes after U.S. AG Eric Holder in another federal court and a demand for rush-rush judgment.
There should be a warning sign in Austin for Governor Rick Perry and his Attorney General, something to the effect about biting off more than a state can chew.
First, no matter how much they hate the 1965 Voting Rights Act, by seeking compliance and approval through the D.C., rather than the U.S. Justice Department, the state de facto acknowledge the legality of the Act and the validity of its provisions. Therefore, Texas prohibited itself from going after the Act, insofar as it cannot amend it original complaint.
Second, the map will change, but by how much, we do not know. It will most certainly not be like the state legislature’s map. In this respect, the State will lose something. It must concede more political turf to the minority communities.
Third, it crunch time for elections in Texas, and the issue of maps and voter identification are still unresolved. No candidate can get on the ballot without a map. The more pressure to get these issues resolved the less time and patience for more debate. And, after all, with Texas being Red as Hell, who cares if we ever vote in 2012, if they kill District 33?
Wendy Davis Nails Texas Attorney General to GOP Cross
To contact us Click HERE
If you heard it said once, you'll hear it said again: DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!
By Eddie Griffin
In the year that Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, we caught the wind of emancipation on his coattail, and lifted ourselves from the dregs of political oppression and economic tyranny, by pulling off one of the greatest upsets in Texas red history.
We voted out one of the good ole boys in the state Senate, by the name of Kim Brimer, a man who had represented our community in Austin for years, but whose face we had never seen. Against him, we sent a would-be giant killer, in the person of a sweet and meek city councilwoman named Wendy Davis.
After a bruising campaign fight and a marginal win in the 2008 elections, Wendy Davis took Senate District 10 like Grant took Vicksburg. Afterwards, she immediately became the butt of good ole boy jokes in the Texas Senate.
Gov. Rick Perry called Ms. Davis a “little girl”; and, after she forced the state legislature into overtime special session with her filibuster over education funding, Perry derided her as a pesky “showboat”.
The euphoria of liberation was jeopardized at birth. Almost immediately, the counterattack began, and culminated with a redistricting scheme that sliced and diced Wendy’s base of support until her district resembled a T-Bone pork chop, with all the minority districts carved out from around the bone, leaving her with nothing but the bone.
Wasn't this discriminatory gerrymandering? Didn't this scheme violate the 1964 Voting Rights Act?
Gov. Rick Perry and Texas AG Gregg Abbott literally wagged their fingers in our face and dared us to go to court.
There was a time when all seemed well, with the 2000 census recorded, political boundaries set, and electoral seats rightly apportioned, we would not have need for another redistricting plan until 2010. But then Majority Leader Tom DeLay concocted a mid-census redistricting plan.
In December 2005, the Washington Post reported, "Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay violated the Voting Rights". (source)
Tom DeLay is now serving prison time, the ill-gotten gains from the 2003 plan were never rectified or corrected, nor could it have been possible after elected officials were seated in office.
It was against this backdrop and history that Wendy Davis was faced with the dilemma of taking the redistricting fight to court. In the meantime, it was apparent that the GOP strong arm tactic was not a simply aimed at running roughshod over SD 10, but a greater aspiration against President Barack Obama. In a state's rights shot across the bough, the Gov. Rick Perry threatened to secede from the Union, as if the slaves of Texas would sit idly by. Nevertheless, the ploy boosted Perry's national profile in his own run for presidency.
The pesky little girl from Senate District 10 was forced to fend for her turf and defend our voting right. Therefore, Wendy Davis filed suit. And in the irony of ignorance, the state Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott, used the same argument as before: Allow the state to use the legislature's map for the 2012 elections; and if anything is amiss, then it could be corrected later.
Not so, this time, said the district court.
Had the matter centered only on the newly drawn district, maybe the courts would have bought into the state's plan. But what happened to Senate District 10 was so stark and egregious that the court took the unprecedented initiative to overstep its legal bounds by redrawing the state map, to be favor minority communities, thus putting life back into our dead hopes.
Frantically, the governor and attorney general appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, in Perry v. Davis, more like Goliath v. Davis.
Surely, the U.S. Supreme Court would lay this issue to rest, and declare the Voting Rights Act of 1964 as unconstitutional. That is what the Texas AG would have hoped for. But SCOTUS chose not to tackle the constitutional issue, and remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration.
With the GOP primaries coming on, the Texas AG made a critical mistake. Getting a few minority organizations to sign off on a compromise was not going to wash with other minority groups, and the district courts was not buying it. Something had to give; otherwise, Texas would completely miss out on the GOP presidential primaries.
Like the big fish that bit off more than it could chew, the GOP had to spit out Senate District 10.
Davis: Deal to preserve her state Senate district is 'a tremendous victory'
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012
BY AMAN BATHEJA
abatheja@star-telegram.com
State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, claimed a major political and legal victory Wednesday in the battles over the state's political maps, and a federal judge told Texas officials to prepare for May 29 primary elections, weeks later than April 3, the current date.
The later date threatens to relegate Texas to an afterthought in the Republican presidential primaries. The state was once poised to play a decisive role in the GOP campaign.
When the Texas primaries are finally held, Davis will be running in the district boundaries that were in place when she ousted Republican Sen. Kim Brimer in 2008. State leaders agreed Wednesday to leave the district unchanged for the 2012 elections... (Complete Story)
By Eddie Griffin
In the year that Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, we caught the wind of emancipation on his coattail, and lifted ourselves from the dregs of political oppression and economic tyranny, by pulling off one of the greatest upsets in Texas red history.
We voted out one of the good ole boys in the state Senate, by the name of Kim Brimer, a man who had represented our community in Austin for years, but whose face we had never seen. Against him, we sent a would-be giant killer, in the person of a sweet and meek city councilwoman named Wendy Davis.
After a bruising campaign fight and a marginal win in the 2008 elections, Wendy Davis took Senate District 10 like Grant took Vicksburg. Afterwards, she immediately became the butt of good ole boy jokes in the Texas Senate.
Gov. Rick Perry called Ms. Davis a “little girl”; and, after she forced the state legislature into overtime special session with her filibuster over education funding, Perry derided her as a pesky “showboat”.
The euphoria of liberation was jeopardized at birth. Almost immediately, the counterattack began, and culminated with a redistricting scheme that sliced and diced Wendy’s base of support until her district resembled a T-Bone pork chop, with all the minority districts carved out from around the bone, leaving her with nothing but the bone.
Wasn't this discriminatory gerrymandering? Didn't this scheme violate the 1964 Voting Rights Act?
Gov. Rick Perry and Texas AG Gregg Abbott literally wagged their fingers in our face and dared us to go to court.
There was a time when all seemed well, with the 2000 census recorded, political boundaries set, and electoral seats rightly apportioned, we would not have need for another redistricting plan until 2010. But then Majority Leader Tom DeLay concocted a mid-census redistricting plan.
In December 2005, the Washington Post reported, "Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay violated the Voting Rights". (source)
Tom DeLay is now serving prison time, the ill-gotten gains from the 2003 plan were never rectified or corrected, nor could it have been possible after elected officials were seated in office.
It was against this backdrop and history that Wendy Davis was faced with the dilemma of taking the redistricting fight to court. In the meantime, it was apparent that the GOP strong arm tactic was not a simply aimed at running roughshod over SD 10, but a greater aspiration against President Barack Obama. In a state's rights shot across the bough, the Gov. Rick Perry threatened to secede from the Union, as if the slaves of Texas would sit idly by. Nevertheless, the ploy boosted Perry's national profile in his own run for presidency.
The pesky little girl from Senate District 10 was forced to fend for her turf and defend our voting right. Therefore, Wendy Davis filed suit. And in the irony of ignorance, the state Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott, used the same argument as before: Allow the state to use the legislature's map for the 2012 elections; and if anything is amiss, then it could be corrected later.
Not so, this time, said the district court.
Had the matter centered only on the newly drawn district, maybe the courts would have bought into the state's plan. But what happened to Senate District 10 was so stark and egregious that the court took the unprecedented initiative to overstep its legal bounds by redrawing the state map, to be favor minority communities, thus putting life back into our dead hopes.
Frantically, the governor and attorney general appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, in Perry v. Davis, more like Goliath v. Davis.
Surely, the U.S. Supreme Court would lay this issue to rest, and declare the Voting Rights Act of 1964 as unconstitutional. That is what the Texas AG would have hoped for. But SCOTUS chose not to tackle the constitutional issue, and remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration.
With the GOP primaries coming on, the Texas AG made a critical mistake. Getting a few minority organizations to sign off on a compromise was not going to wash with other minority groups, and the district courts was not buying it. Something had to give; otherwise, Texas would completely miss out on the GOP presidential primaries.
Like the big fish that bit off more than it could chew, the GOP had to spit out Senate District 10.
Davis: Deal to preserve her state Senate district is 'a tremendous victory'
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012
BY AMAN BATHEJA
abatheja@star-telegram.com
State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, claimed a major political and legal victory Wednesday in the battles over the state's political maps, and a federal judge told Texas officials to prepare for May 29 primary elections, weeks later than April 3, the current date.
The later date threatens to relegate Texas to an afterthought in the Republican presidential primaries. The state was once poised to play a decisive role in the GOP campaign.
When the Texas primaries are finally held, Davis will be running in the district boundaries that were in place when she ousted Republican Sen. Kim Brimer in 2008. State leaders agreed Wednesday to leave the district unchanged for the 2012 elections... (Complete Story)
Wendy Davis says: "Mama Bear is Mad"
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One of the good ole boys who hold women in low esteem made a snide comment about when “Mama Bear gets mad, change occurs”. This enigmatic statement dates back to the days when women were suppressed, to the days when every good ole boy the best way to keep a woman was “barefooted and pregnant”. The joke usually followed that you could have dominion over his wife “until Mama Bear got mad.”
A few weeks ago, Foster Friess, a billionaire supporter of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that in his day “gals” used aspirin as birth control — “They just put one between their knees.” The attempt at humor left the veteran newswoman speechless.
This is why we call them the good ole boys. They keep their women suppressed. But now Wendy Davis, crusader for Texas Senate District 10, says: “Mama Bear is mad.”
State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth said that, based on the number of calls her office is getting, she believes such attacks are going to have a dramatic impact on the upcoming presidential election, to the benefit of President Obama and the Democratic Party.
“The outcry is extreme, from Democratic and Republican women alike,” she said...
Davis recounted a story by former Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, talking about the Mothers Against Drunk Driving group and their success in forcing drastic changes in state law.
“When Mama Bear gets mad, change occurs,” Davis quoted Ratliff as saying.
And right now, she said, “Mama Bear is mad.”
Wow! The little lady with the big voice, Wendy Davis, is a thorn in the butt of a good ole boy named Rick Perry.
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS WOMEN coming to a town near you
A few weeks ago, Foster Friess, a billionaire supporter of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that in his day “gals” used aspirin as birth control — “They just put one between their knees.” The attempt at humor left the veteran newswoman speechless.
This is why we call them the good ole boys. They keep their women suppressed. But now Wendy Davis, crusader for Texas Senate District 10, says: “Mama Bear is mad.”
State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth said that, based on the number of calls her office is getting, she believes such attacks are going to have a dramatic impact on the upcoming presidential election, to the benefit of President Obama and the Democratic Party.
“The outcry is extreme, from Democratic and Republican women alike,” she said...
Davis recounted a story by former Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, talking about the Mothers Against Drunk Driving group and their success in forcing drastic changes in state law.
“When Mama Bear gets mad, change occurs,” Davis quoted Ratliff as saying.
And right now, she said, “Mama Bear is mad.”
Wow! The little lady with the big voice, Wendy Davis, is a thorn in the butt of a good ole boy named Rick Perry.
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS WOMEN coming to a town near you
Response to the 'Ideology of Nutritionism'
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I found the recent class topic on nutritionism especially telling about how humans respond to and deal with complex issues involving multiple factors. These issues may include things like health and hygiene, environmental sustainability, macroeconomic analysis, etc. Sometimes the path towards a viable solution to issues in these areas may be hindered by a habit to condense or even polarize the issues. When thinking about maintaining a healthy body, it’s hard to weigh and balance factors like diet, genetic predisposition, sleeping patterns, psychological responses to stress and pleasure, etc. And yet these are all macro-level products of even more complex interactions at the biochemical level. So it’s easy to understand how, given these complex issues, there would be a certain inclination to resort to simple answers and explanations.
One of the problems Gyorgy Scrinis highlighted in his article, “On the Ideology of Nutritionism”, that perfectly exemplifies this phenomenon was that of ‘second-order nutritional reductionism’ (p.41). Second-order nutritional reductionism is the focus on individual nutrients, and how they individually benefit the health of the human body. Of course this is complete nonsense, because all nutrients benefit the health of the human body by interacting with several other nutrients in complex biochemical reactions. Resorting to second-order nutritional reductionism would be like taking apart the human body, molecule by molecule, and then from scratch, deciding which parts are necessary for your survival.
The problems of nutritional health in today’s society aren’t new 21st century problems; in fact, the problems are caused by a larger systemic inadequacy of society that the public health community has been trying to confront for some time- a scientifically illiterate populace. I am not saying that science is the absolutely most important pillar of a society. I’m saying that science education is the necessary solution for the way our society responds to the problems it’s facing at present. The way food and weight-loss industries are taking advantage of the lure of second-order nutritional reductionism is reminiscent of the era of ‘snake oil medicine’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in which noxious concoctions were being sold to the public with absolutely no ingredient labeling. Examples of these patent medicines include names like ‘Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root’ or ‘Dr. Moore’s Indian Root Pills’, which mostly contained substances like alcohol, laxatives, and in one occasion, organophosphates to rig chemical tests.
Of course it’s different for today’s nutritional health issues, in which the most of the ingredients in manufactured foods are far from poisonous. But it shows an exaggerated consumer confidence in the industries to know what’s right for them, to know that single nutrient or health myth that would serve as a panacea for all of their problems. What is necessary is to get consumers to make choices based on scientifically rational terms, to be familiar with the scientific and, especially, clinical terms relevant to their health, and to get them to understand how to rationalize issues on a scale involving multiple factors.
25 Haziran 2012 Pazartesi
Happy Birthday to Meeee!!
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Just wanted to share that today is my 27th birthday :)
Plans? We celebrated my birthday this past Sunday with a dinner at home with a couple of close family friends attending. Although I do have to say it was interesting because we heard the local tornado warning sirens go off around 7pm, just as we were getting ready to sit down and eat. A small cold air funnel touched down on the south west side of town, with no serious damage in that area. The cell which produced our funnel cloud was part of a cold front with severe thunderstorms which produced 6 tornadoes in Indiana over Saturday and Sunday, causing moderate damage to homes, outbuildings, trees, and utility poles.
Tornado: National Weather Service tracks path of tornadoes in Indiana - WXIN
Plans? We celebrated my birthday this past Sunday with a dinner at home with a couple of close family friends attending. Although I do have to say it was interesting because we heard the local tornado warning sirens go off around 7pm, just as we were getting ready to sit down and eat. A small cold air funnel touched down on the south west side of town, with no serious damage in that area. The cell which produced our funnel cloud was part of a cold front with severe thunderstorms which produced 6 tornadoes in Indiana over Saturday and Sunday, causing moderate damage to homes, outbuildings, trees, and utility poles.
Tornado: National Weather Service tracks path of tornadoes in Indiana - WXIN
More About Me
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Some interesting questions have been raised, as well as implied, in the course of discussions with others on political blogs and I would like to take the time to answer these questions as well as provide an opportunity for you, my readers, to get to know me better.
Question: You've mentioned that you have been a peer counselor for 10 years. Did you have any sort of training? When and where does your experience come from?
In the spring of 1999, I began peer ministry through a local church's highschool youth group, which ended the following summer. In peer ministry, we trained to be peer counselors through role-playing, a work book, discussions, and peer evaluation. Some vital key points we learned were: reflective and active listening, how to provide non-judgemental responses and advice, guidance through basic problem solving, with an emphasis on confidentiality unless the person was in danger of harm or death & refer to a professional if issue is severe. Issues we learned about included: unplanned pregnancy, illegal drug use, underage drinking, and depression/suicide.
From 2002 until January 2004, I maintained a now defunct website (seen here), with a section of information on unplanned pregnancy and provided an e-mail where men and women could contact me for advice and support. Basically I would guide and support them through the decision-making process using active and reflective listening and basic problem solving skills and connected them with resources in their communities to further meet their needs. I received and answered up to 5 e-mails a week.
May 17, 2003, I completed and received a certificate for 6 contact hours of Infant Adoption Awareness Adoption Liason training (Provided by the National Council for Adoption, through a grant from the state of Indiana. Training personnel provided by Bethany Christian Services)
In 2003, I created a Yahoo! Group Pregnant_Teen_Support, a peer support group for teens (12-20yrs) who are facing an unplanned, unexpected, or unwanted pregnancy, with an emphasis on politically neutrality and non-judgementalism. Today, the group has over 400 members and I have stepped down to co-moderator due to pressing issues in my personal life.
Also, I have become an accepted member at the following online unplanned pregnancy/abortion recovery support communities starting in 2004: Yahoo! Groups: I Might Be Pregnant, IVIllage Abortion Support Board, and the PASS Support Boards.
Question: What are your spiritual/philosophical beliefs?
Answer: I consider myself an agnostic theist. I was born and raised a Catholic, but in my college years I choose to leave the Catholic Church and started attending my husband's church, a small congregation (less than 100 members) which at the time was afffiliated with the United Methodist church. My parents jokingly call me a "Matholic" a combination of Catholic and Methodist :P At that time that I felt very much at home in a United Methodist church because of their scripturally based beliefs (sola scriptura), emphasis on mission work, traditional services, very similiar to the Catholic mass, traditional music, and more conservative stance on political issues. However as time went on, a series of life events led me to start doubting my faith and the existance of a Christian god or higher power(s). I no longer found comfort in or the answers I was seeking in the Christian faith, nor did I idenify with any of the world religions, which led me to identify myself as agnostic two years ago in 2008. I do not believe in multiple gods/godesses, but I am undecided about whether or not one omnipresent, benevolent god/godess exists. My spouse is a practicing Christian and does not agree with my decision and so I do attend church from time to time with my husband to maintain relationship harmony.
Question: What are your political beliefs?
Answer: I would consider myself a moderate, voting democratically on some issues and republican on others. My politically beliefs on the various issues are described here.
Question: But don't you oppose abortion and contraception based on moralistic, bible-based thinking? Didn't we even see a blog entry where you clearly made biblical references in oppositon to abortion?
From when I began to write this blog in 2004 until about mid 2008, I did indeed write a couple of spirituality based entries, at a time when I still believed in the Christian god, but was starting to doubt my faith. These entries can be found under my Religion and Spirituality post tag. There is one entry, written in late 2004, entitled Political Corruption in the Church, in which I took the United Methodist Church and other Christian denominations to task for taking a pro-choice stance based on false and loose interpretations of the Christian faith. You will find this is the only entry on my blog where I make biblical references in oppositon to abortion, which at the time 5 years ago, was made when I still believed in the Christian Faith. However my beliefs have changed over the years and these days my primary reasons for opposing abortion are based on social, ethical, and medical reasons, and thus these are the basis of my writings on abortion from mid 2005 on. I do not believe in making abortion illegal. Rather I believe we would benefit from: more medical regulation of abortion practices, changing hearts and minds with education and knowledge, reducing the need for abortion through a focus on preventing unplanned pregnancy with availability of contraception and sex education, a better support system for pregnant and parenting women who are working or continuing their education, and addressing the societal pressures which lead women to abortion.
Question: You've mentioned that you have been a peer counselor for 10 years. Did you have any sort of training? When and where does your experience come from?
In the spring of 1999, I began peer ministry through a local church's highschool youth group, which ended the following summer. In peer ministry, we trained to be peer counselors through role-playing, a work book, discussions, and peer evaluation. Some vital key points we learned were: reflective and active listening, how to provide non-judgemental responses and advice, guidance through basic problem solving, with an emphasis on confidentiality unless the person was in danger of harm or death & refer to a professional if issue is severe. Issues we learned about included: unplanned pregnancy, illegal drug use, underage drinking, and depression/suicide.
From 2002 until January 2004, I maintained a now defunct website (seen here), with a section of information on unplanned pregnancy and provided an e-mail where men and women could contact me for advice and support. Basically I would guide and support them through the decision-making process using active and reflective listening and basic problem solving skills and connected them with resources in their communities to further meet their needs. I received and answered up to 5 e-mails a week.
May 17, 2003, I completed and received a certificate for 6 contact hours of Infant Adoption Awareness Adoption Liason training (Provided by the National Council for Adoption, through a grant from the state of Indiana. Training personnel provided by Bethany Christian Services)
In 2003, I created a Yahoo! Group Pregnant_Teen_Support, a peer support group for teens (12-20yrs) who are facing an unplanned, unexpected, or unwanted pregnancy, with an emphasis on politically neutrality and non-judgementalism. Today, the group has over 400 members and I have stepped down to co-moderator due to pressing issues in my personal life.
Also, I have become an accepted member at the following online unplanned pregnancy/abortion recovery support communities starting in 2004: Yahoo! Groups: I Might Be Pregnant, IVIllage Abortion Support Board, and the PASS Support Boards.
Question: What are your spiritual/philosophical beliefs?
Answer: I consider myself an agnostic theist. I was born and raised a Catholic, but in my college years I choose to leave the Catholic Church and started attending my husband's church, a small congregation (less than 100 members) which at the time was afffiliated with the United Methodist church. My parents jokingly call me a "Matholic" a combination of Catholic and Methodist :P At that time that I felt very much at home in a United Methodist church because of their scripturally based beliefs (sola scriptura), emphasis on mission work, traditional services, very similiar to the Catholic mass, traditional music, and more conservative stance on political issues. However as time went on, a series of life events led me to start doubting my faith and the existance of a Christian god or higher power(s). I no longer found comfort in or the answers I was seeking in the Christian faith, nor did I idenify with any of the world religions, which led me to identify myself as agnostic two years ago in 2008. I do not believe in multiple gods/godesses, but I am undecided about whether or not one omnipresent, benevolent god/godess exists. My spouse is a practicing Christian and does not agree with my decision and so I do attend church from time to time with my husband to maintain relationship harmony.
Question: What are your political beliefs?
Answer: I would consider myself a moderate, voting democratically on some issues and republican on others. My politically beliefs on the various issues are described here.
Question: But don't you oppose abortion and contraception based on moralistic, bible-based thinking? Didn't we even see a blog entry where you clearly made biblical references in oppositon to abortion?
From when I began to write this blog in 2004 until about mid 2008, I did indeed write a couple of spirituality based entries, at a time when I still believed in the Christian god, but was starting to doubt my faith. These entries can be found under my Religion and Spirituality post tag. There is one entry, written in late 2004, entitled Political Corruption in the Church, in which I took the United Methodist Church and other Christian denominations to task for taking a pro-choice stance based on false and loose interpretations of the Christian faith. You will find this is the only entry on my blog where I make biblical references in oppositon to abortion, which at the time 5 years ago, was made when I still believed in the Christian Faith. However my beliefs have changed over the years and these days my primary reasons for opposing abortion are based on social, ethical, and medical reasons, and thus these are the basis of my writings on abortion from mid 2005 on. I do not believe in making abortion illegal. Rather I believe we would benefit from: more medical regulation of abortion practices, changing hearts and minds with education and knowledge, reducing the need for abortion through a focus on preventing unplanned pregnancy with availability of contraception and sex education, a better support system for pregnant and parenting women who are working or continuing their education, and addressing the societal pressures which lead women to abortion.
Blogger's Home Vandalized for Expressing Pro-Life Views
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This is just sad. In the United States, he has the same right to free speech and to express his political views and opinions as anyone else, whether others agree with his views or not. All too often pro-choice individuals are defenders and advocates of "tolerance" and "free speech," that is until a differing view from their own is expressed. As the old saying goes, "Free speech for me, but not for thee!"
Update 6/25/10: Apparently this has made the news: Telegraph Harold: Man believes vandalism tied to his opposition to abortion
Update 6/25/10: Apparently this has made the news: Telegraph Harold: Man believes vandalism tied to his opposition to abortion
Helping Women Fight Back Against Rape
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At the South African World Cup soccer games this week, in a country with alarmingly high rape rates and low conviction rates, 30k condoms of a different type are being distributed: female condoms with teeth.
South African doctor invents female condoms with 'teeth' to fight rape
I honestly think this is a great project. On the positive side, in countries where women do not often enough receive protection from rape and justice against rapists, it will provide a new form of self-defense and empowerment for women. And in developed countries such as the U.S. it will hopefully lead to more arrests of and deter date rape. However, while this condom is intended to deter potential rapists, one of my concerns is that it doesn't prevent the act of rape from occuring, but rather is made to very quickly put an end to a rapist's attack. And with that said, while it does provide protection against seminal fluids, because it is designed as a defense once penetration has occured, it's faults lie with that it doesn't protect the woman from the physical and pyschological devastation of being forcibly penetrated against her will. Also, my concern lies with protential violent retaliation against the victim by the would-be-rapist. There are benefits, but also disadvantages to this. The Rape-Axe is a start, but we've got a longs ways to go.
While we're talking about this issue, it's worth noting that a while back, feminist and progressive blogger, Bitting Beaver wrote a contraversial, but informational article, entitled, "The Rapist Checklist" which defined and clearly defined rape so that men and women can know boundaries.
South African doctor invents female condoms with 'teeth' to fight rape
(CNN) -- South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.H/T Jill Stanek
"She looked at me and said, 'If only I had teeth down there,'" recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. "I promised her I'd do something to help people like her one day."
Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.
Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.
The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man's penis during penetration, Ehlers said.
Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it -- a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.
"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on," she said. "If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter... however, it doesn't break the skin, and there's no danger of fluid exposure."
Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.
"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said.
After the trial period, they'll be available for about $2 a piece. She hopes the women will report back to her.
"The ideal situation would be for a woman to wear this when she's going out on some kind of blind date ... or to an area she's not comfortable with," she said.
The mother of two daughters said she visited prisons and talked to convicted rapists to find out whether such a device would have made them rethink their actions.
Some said it would have, Ehlers said.
Critics say the female condom is not a long-term solution and makes women vulnerable to more violence from men trapped by the device.
It's also a form of "enslavement," said Victoria Kajja, a fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the east African country of Uganda. "The fears surrounding the victim, the act of wearing the condom in anticipation of being assaulted all represent enslavement that no woman should be subjected to."
Kajja said the device constantly reminds women of their vulnerability.
"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," she added. "It also does not help with the psychological problems that manifest after assaults."
However, its one advantage is it allows justice to be served, she said.
Various rights organizations that work in South Africa declined to comment, including Human Rights Watch and Care International.
South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, Human Rights Watch says on its website. A 2009 report by the nation's Medical Research Council found that 28 percent of men surveyed had raped a woman or girl, with one in 20 saying they had raped in the past year, according to Human Rights Watch.
In most African countries, rape convictions are not common. Affected women don't get immediate access to medical care, and DNA tests to provide evidence are unaffordable.
"Women and girls who experience these violations are denied justice, factors that contribute to the normalization of rape and violence in South African society," Human Rights Watch says.
Women take drastic measures to prevent rape in South Africa, Ehlers said, with some wearing extra tight biker shorts and others inserting razor blades wrapped in sponges in their private parts.
Critics have accused her of developing a medieval device to fight rape.
"Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it's for a medieval deed that has been around for decades," she said. "I believe something's got to be done ... and this will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."
I honestly think this is a great project. On the positive side, in countries where women do not often enough receive protection from rape and justice against rapists, it will provide a new form of self-defense and empowerment for women. And in developed countries such as the U.S. it will hopefully lead to more arrests of and deter date rape. However, while this condom is intended to deter potential rapists, one of my concerns is that it doesn't prevent the act of rape from occuring, but rather is made to very quickly put an end to a rapist's attack. And with that said, while it does provide protection against seminal fluids, because it is designed as a defense once penetration has occured, it's faults lie with that it doesn't protect the woman from the physical and pyschological devastation of being forcibly penetrated against her will. Also, my concern lies with protential violent retaliation against the victim by the would-be-rapist. There are benefits, but also disadvantages to this. The Rape-Axe is a start, but we've got a longs ways to go.
While we're talking about this issue, it's worth noting that a while back, feminist and progressive blogger, Bitting Beaver wrote a contraversial, but informational article, entitled, "The Rapist Checklist" which defined and clearly defined rape so that men and women can know boundaries.
My Experience at a Planned Parenthood
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I went to Planned Parenthood last year and saw a nurse practitioner for my annual exam. You may be wondering, because I identify as pro-life, why I'd find myself in a Planned Parenthood. Well, although I had health insurance, it was a high deductible plan and we were tight on money, plus I wanted to see what the organization was like for my self..According to the National Planned Parenthood website, they list female infertility as one of their services, in addition to routine preventive care. I signed in and During the course of the exam, I explained that I have been diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), one of the most common female endocrine disorders. I explained my concerns regarding the negative health implications associated with this condition and requested a medication to treat the symptoms. She replied that all she could offer was the regular birth control pill.. I tried to explain that I didn't want the Pill, I'd experienced too many side effects and my husband and I were open to pregnancy. Even so, she continued to encourage to me to re-consider taking the Pill and I felt like I didn't have much of a choice, between treating the symptoms of my condition or keeping my fertility. At no time during our discussion were any other options given. She continued to encourage me to take a script for the pill, although I was not interested. Getting no where and frustrated, I ended my appointment and took the script for a birth control pill of l which I had no intention of filling, so I could get out of there. I remained polite however and signed out at the desk and left. I later did some research and learned there are several other medications which can be prescribed to treat the symptoms of and address the underlying cause of PCOS without preventing fertility. Apparently this PP wasn't equipped to provide infertility services or treat abnormal female reproductive conditions, nor did their staff seem interested in providing services to help me become pregnant.
I went to Planned Parenthood last year and saw a nurse practitioner for my annual exam. You may be wondering, because I identify as pro-life, why I'd find myself in a Planned Parenthood. Well, although I had health insurance, it was a high deductible plan and we were tight on money, plus I wanted to see what the organization was like for my self..According to the National Planned Parenthood website, they list female infertility as one of their services, in addition to routine preventive care. I signed in and During the course of the exam, I explained that I have been diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), one of the most common female endocrine disorders. I explained my concerns regarding the negative health implications associated with this condition and requested a medication to treat the symptoms. She replied that all she could offer was the regular birth control pill.. I tried to explain that I didn't want the Pill, I'd experienced too many side effects and my husband and I were open to pregnancy. Even so, she continued to encourage to me to re-consider taking the Pill and I felt like I didn't have much of a choice, between treating the symptoms of my condition or keeping my fertility. At no time during our discussion were any other options given. She continued to encourage me to take a script for the pill, although I was not interested. Getting no where and frustrated, I ended my appointment and took the script for a birth control pill of l which I had no intention of filling, so I could get out of there. I remained polite however and signed out at the desk and left. I later did some research and learned there are several other medications which can be prescribed to treat the symptoms of and address the underlying cause of PCOS without preventing fertility. Apparently this PP wasn't equipped to provide infertility services or treat abnormal female reproductive conditions, nor did their staff seem interested in providing services to help me become pregnant.
24 Haziran 2012 Pazar
The True Fate of the Star of Bethlehem
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Whizzzzzzzzzzzzsssssssstreakflasssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh! In a perfectly soundless way, the flash of light more brilliant than any human had ever beheld struck across the night sky, following a roughly southeasterly trajectory.
Coincidentally, the Three Wise Men, Magi, or Three Kings, were having an evening together out in the desert. For one it was a way to get away from senators. For another it was a place to get away from the wives. For the third it was an escape from his generals. When they saw the falling star, they all mused on its spiritual significance. You would have to be mightily agnostic not to do the same.
Among themselves, they had no fewer than three great prophesies that the portent could fulfill. Each of them knew of a foretold coming of a Savior, a Son of God or Messiah who was more than a prophet. So they quickly agreed. “What we have just seen was either the portent of the new Savior or the actual man himself.” Seeing that they were the only authority figures on hand, or for a great reason to escape their offices for a great adventure, they decided to follow the falling star to the point where it fell to Earth, and there greet their new spiritual Savior upon arrival.
The bright traveling star had definitely been seen by local peoples as they followed the star. “It went that way,” they all pointed.
Clearly, what the Three Mages had seen was probably some sort of meteor, and what they might not have known was that meteors can cover a lot of ground.
They were not alone in the interpretation of legend of a Messiah, and so most of the local people blessed the Mages in their quest. Onward, they rode.
As they traveled, the villagers continued to encourage the Mages in their quest.
But as time wore on, the Three Kings were not so rallied to their cause.
“We have been on these blessed camels for nearly two weeks now,” one complained.
“None of those senators will know what to do as long as I am gone. Maybe they will know too well.”
“And I really miss my wife. Er, I mean my wives.”
In this spirit they were able to travel only a few more days. The only thing stopping them from returning home immediately was the realization that everyone in all the little towns on their return trip would be very much interested in the result of their journey, and were more or less expecting them to produce a Messiah of some sort.
As ministers or lords of their respective kingdoms, to fail at this endeavor could mean the end of their political careers. So they conspired to falsely anoint any newborn boychild at the earliest convenience. The end of their journey happened to be the town of Bethlehem. They walked into the first inn on the outskirts of the town as soon as they arrived. They asked the innkeeper if any boy children had been born in the area in the recent past and the innkeeper led them to the barn, where they met a young couple and their newborn child.
One jubilated aloud. “This must be the Savior we have sought!”
“Messiah, you mean. How can you tell?”
Quieter though, one doubted. “I thought he would be nobler of birth, or have a halo at least. You guys are mad. These are two mongrel beggars and their bastard child!”
“Nevertheless he will be our King. This quest has become ridiculous. The star pointed the way, it didn’t say that we would have to circle the entire globe of the Earth.”
“Globe of the Earth? The earth is flat!”
“Never mind.”
“He’s cute. She’s beautiful. I sure do miss my wife.”
So the three Mages ended their journey and headed home, telling the people along the way that they had met the child Savior in a faraway town, but never exactly which town it was. They pleaded with people to let the Messiah have a normal upbringing before assuming His adult responsibilities, and warned that certain tyrant kings might not suffer a young rival to live. This was very convincing, so the deception of the Magi was never discovered.
History has not decided whether the Biblical Jesus found by the Wise Men was the same babe, or if some other pretender among many prevailed with popular opinion. In any case, the anointed one rose to the expectations of his people, and benefited from the education financed by one of the wiser Wise Men. The faith that he founded grew into a worldwide complex of related religions, arguably one of the best efforts as far as human spiritual endeavors go.
But where did that meteor land? Perhaps God the Father truly did forsake his only begotten Son, because every now and then, if anyone were near, from a crevasse in the desert Red Sea Hills, one might hear a hollow, metallic sound emanating from a shiny metallic pod which is now almost buried:
Pang pang pang
Pang pang pang
Which is the only way our true Savior has to say:
Let me out
Let me out!
Copyright Princess Poysen Ivieee 2006
Coincidentally, the Three Wise Men, Magi, or Three Kings, were having an evening together out in the desert. For one it was a way to get away from senators. For another it was a place to get away from the wives. For the third it was an escape from his generals. When they saw the falling star, they all mused on its spiritual significance. You would have to be mightily agnostic not to do the same.
Among themselves, they had no fewer than three great prophesies that the portent could fulfill. Each of them knew of a foretold coming of a Savior, a Son of God or Messiah who was more than a prophet. So they quickly agreed. “What we have just seen was either the portent of the new Savior or the actual man himself.” Seeing that they were the only authority figures on hand, or for a great reason to escape their offices for a great adventure, they decided to follow the falling star to the point where it fell to Earth, and there greet their new spiritual Savior upon arrival.
The bright traveling star had definitely been seen by local peoples as they followed the star. “It went that way,” they all pointed.
Clearly, what the Three Mages had seen was probably some sort of meteor, and what they might not have known was that meteors can cover a lot of ground.
They were not alone in the interpretation of legend of a Messiah, and so most of the local people blessed the Mages in their quest. Onward, they rode.
As they traveled, the villagers continued to encourage the Mages in their quest.
But as time wore on, the Three Kings were not so rallied to their cause.
“We have been on these blessed camels for nearly two weeks now,” one complained.
“None of those senators will know what to do as long as I am gone. Maybe they will know too well.”
“And I really miss my wife. Er, I mean my wives.”
In this spirit they were able to travel only a few more days. The only thing stopping them from returning home immediately was the realization that everyone in all the little towns on their return trip would be very much interested in the result of their journey, and were more or less expecting them to produce a Messiah of some sort.
As ministers or lords of their respective kingdoms, to fail at this endeavor could mean the end of their political careers. So they conspired to falsely anoint any newborn boychild at the earliest convenience. The end of their journey happened to be the town of Bethlehem. They walked into the first inn on the outskirts of the town as soon as they arrived. They asked the innkeeper if any boy children had been born in the area in the recent past and the innkeeper led them to the barn, where they met a young couple and their newborn child.
One jubilated aloud. “This must be the Savior we have sought!”
“Messiah, you mean. How can you tell?”
Quieter though, one doubted. “I thought he would be nobler of birth, or have a halo at least. You guys are mad. These are two mongrel beggars and their bastard child!”
“Nevertheless he will be our King. This quest has become ridiculous. The star pointed the way, it didn’t say that we would have to circle the entire globe of the Earth.”
“Globe of the Earth? The earth is flat!”
“Never mind.”
“He’s cute. She’s beautiful. I sure do miss my wife.”
So the three Mages ended their journey and headed home, telling the people along the way that they had met the child Savior in a faraway town, but never exactly which town it was. They pleaded with people to let the Messiah have a normal upbringing before assuming His adult responsibilities, and warned that certain tyrant kings might not suffer a young rival to live. This was very convincing, so the deception of the Magi was never discovered.
History has not decided whether the Biblical Jesus found by the Wise Men was the same babe, or if some other pretender among many prevailed with popular opinion. In any case, the anointed one rose to the expectations of his people, and benefited from the education financed by one of the wiser Wise Men. The faith that he founded grew into a worldwide complex of related religions, arguably one of the best efforts as far as human spiritual endeavors go.
But where did that meteor land? Perhaps God the Father truly did forsake his only begotten Son, because every now and then, if anyone were near, from a crevasse in the desert Red Sea Hills, one might hear a hollow, metallic sound emanating from a shiny metallic pod which is now almost buried:
Pang pang pang
Pang pang pang
Which is the only way our true Savior has to say:
Let me out
Let me out!
Copyright Princess Poysen Ivieee 2006
The Troll and the Bag
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Once upon a time there was an ugly troll who lived under a bridge over a little creek. He lived quite well there in spite of the fact that he was in the middle of the city, eating mushrooms and tadpoles and occasionally frightening schoolchildren. Until one day, a plastic grocery bag from the supermarket down the street blew into his creek right in front of him. This made the troll so angry that he huffed and puffed and swore such that his indignant breath blew the bag up onto the sidewalk above the creek, and the troll chased after it. There he frightened a little girl who had been walking home from school, for not only was he very ugly, but now very angry as well.
“Is this your plastic bag?” he demanded of the little girl.
“No, no sir, it’s not mine,” she pleaded, and ran on down the sidewalk.
The troll was now even angrier, so his indignant huffing and cursing blew the bag all the way to the Governor’s mansion, where a garden party was in progress. The troll marched right up to the Governor and demanded, “Well, is it YOUR plastic bag, then?”
“Uh, no sir, it isn’t mine,” said the Governor, and signaled to the guards. But before they could approach, the troll’s angry sputtering blew the plastic bag up into the air, where it sailed even further, with the troll in hot pursuit.
Now the bag blew all the way to the White House, and settled down right in front of the President’s feet. “All right, it’s GOT to be YOUR bag now, Mr. President! What are you going to do about it?” hollered the troll.
“Look, Troll, I don’t know anything about this plastic bag, and you better get if off the White House lawn before Secret Police ticket you for demonstrating!” sneered the President.
This sent the troll into such a conniption of swearing, huffing, and indignant rage that the plastic grocery bag blew way, way up into the sky, out of the atmosphere even, where finally it came to rest covering the Moon. The troll followed it, and settled into it like a swing, with one leg through each hand-hold of the bag, and there he dangled from the moon, making faces and sticking his purple tongue out and making raspberry sounds at the inhabitants of Earth.
The people of Earth were now quite upset that the view of their beloved Moon was now obscured by a plastic bag, and they cajoled, demanded and pleaded with the troll to take it down.
“Well just tell me, whose plastic bag is this that littered my pretty little creek?” countered the troll.
“It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” came the replies from everyone on Earth.
And that is why there is still a plastic bag draped over the moon, with an ugly troll swinging from it.
copyright Princess Poysen Ivieee 2006
“Is this your plastic bag?” he demanded of the little girl.
“No, no sir, it’s not mine,” she pleaded, and ran on down the sidewalk.
The troll was now even angrier, so his indignant huffing and cursing blew the bag all the way to the Governor’s mansion, where a garden party was in progress. The troll marched right up to the Governor and demanded, “Well, is it YOUR plastic bag, then?”
“Uh, no sir, it isn’t mine,” said the Governor, and signaled to the guards. But before they could approach, the troll’s angry sputtering blew the plastic bag up into the air, where it sailed even further, with the troll in hot pursuit.
Now the bag blew all the way to the White House, and settled down right in front of the President’s feet. “All right, it’s GOT to be YOUR bag now, Mr. President! What are you going to do about it?” hollered the troll.
“Look, Troll, I don’t know anything about this plastic bag, and you better get if off the White House lawn before Secret Police ticket you for demonstrating!” sneered the President.
This sent the troll into such a conniption of swearing, huffing, and indignant rage that the plastic grocery bag blew way, way up into the sky, out of the atmosphere even, where finally it came to rest covering the Moon. The troll followed it, and settled into it like a swing, with one leg through each hand-hold of the bag, and there he dangled from the moon, making faces and sticking his purple tongue out and making raspberry sounds at the inhabitants of Earth.
The people of Earth were now quite upset that the view of their beloved Moon was now obscured by a plastic bag, and they cajoled, demanded and pleaded with the troll to take it down.
“Well just tell me, whose plastic bag is this that littered my pretty little creek?” countered the troll.
“It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” “It’s not mine,” came the replies from everyone on Earth.
And that is why there is still a plastic bag draped over the moon, with an ugly troll swinging from it.
copyright Princess Poysen Ivieee 2006
Faery Falling
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Sometime around the time that your mother was born, a Faery mother was giving birth to a daughter. Faery labors are notoriously difficult, often resulting in the death of the mother. Phaebee swore (though it sounded like flute music to you or me), she screamed, though it seemed a rare bird call, and she sweated furiously which looked like falling stars were streaming from her. She rocked and pushed and did hundreds of aerial somersaults, for Phaebee was very much an airborn Fae.
Finally during one huge high altitude loop-de-loop, and with relatively little bloodshed (appearing as a magenta fog), the baby popped out of the bump that had ridden nearly fifty years on Phaebee’s back between her wings, for that is the peculiar biology of Phaebee’s sort. To Phaebee’s surprise, the tiny parcel began to plummet towards the earth. Out of curiosity Phaebee flew down, alongside the baby Fae, keeping time with the tug of gravity. As the baby fell through the clouds, Phaebee saw its eyes open, wide, violet, and innocent. By the time the baby was approaching the treetops, Phaebee had formulated a theory that the reason the baby was falling from the sky was because it had no wings. No such reasoning troubled the child’s unwrinkled brow, and it smiled with love and trust at its mother, who by now can be understood to be utterly clueless and indifferent to the realities of the force of gravity, and what it might mean for those of us not blessed with wings.
A swooping rescue was not inevitable, for Phaebee had no idea that the terminal velocity of her baby’s fall, interrupted by the inconvenient placement of the Earth, could result in what us more-prone-to-mortality sorts would call death.
So you think that this could have been the end of this Faery baby. Well, obviously you don’t know very much about one thing about Faeries which has to do with Luck.
Phoooommmm---phhhhh! Went the puffball mushroom, when all of its three inch diameter was impacted by the two and three-quarters of an inch length of the Faery baby.
Poooo—oooph! Went a cloud of puffball spores, causing the baby and Phaebee to sneeze repeatedly, which resembled a mist of rainbows.
After the sneezing, Mother and Daughter went into a peal of laughter, and there is no lark, no canyon wren that can mimic such a tune.
“What is your name, Daughter?” asked Phaebee.
“If you will, Mother, please call me Plummet,” answered the babe.
Phaebee did not exactly approve of her daughter’s name, but you know how children will be. Not knowing exactly what to do with her non-aerial child, she leased from a dove who had built a nest much higher than usual. As a first time mother, Phaebee expected (or at least hoped or at worst convinced herself) that Plummet would develop wings at some stage in her maturation, because did not caterpillars grow wings after a time earthbound?
After the passing of seven years, Plummet asked Phaebee directly, “Mother, when am I to get my wings? I see you gambol, I see you sport, you fly here and where far away, you bring me marvelous toys and treats from many lands, but I tire of waiting in this nest while you and many other Fae fly free across the globe, exploring the stars if you will!”
Knowing that this time would come, Phaebee bluffed. “Child, it is good that you have many intentions, but it is the nature of our sort to be long lived, and one result of this is that we have long childhoods. Enjoy yourself, and your wings will come in time.”
“Send her down here!” called some Pixies and Corrigan beneath the trees. “We go by foot through the woods and valleys, we visit the towns of men on the ground, and we think it a merry life indeed! Come, mislead some oafish manchild fall into the bog and we will laugh and drink of the sport!”
Bluffing again, Phaebee warned, “You will not find a pair of wings amongst their lot, Plummet.”
So Plummet dreamed and imagined for another seven years. How would you have liked it, to be fourteen years old and still being brought worms to eat by your mother, like any robin? Of course, what Phaebee brought Plummet in the way of comestibles was far exceeded by what she was able to bring in the way of poetry, science, herbology, magic, global politics and theology. Those aerial Faeries really get out and about, you know. Plummet desired nothing more than to be one of these couriers of language, knowledge and culture. She pressed her mother further.
“Just when is the average time for a Faerie of our sorts to develop wings, dear Mother? For I am truthfully beginning to wonder if we are really the same sort of being at all. If I am to never gain my wings, how long do you intend to keep me up in this lofty nursery? Until your distant and hard won death?”
Phaebee could no longer illude her daughter. “Child, it is true that I have wondered about the truth of our relation. My own childhood is equally distant from my death, but I remember no time when I had no wings. I am sorry, daughter. Worry has crossed my brow, sparing yours. Our times in this world have more trouble than before. There are kemm-ie-kals now, brought about by the Sons of Adam, which are new to us, and we know not whether they affect the development of the Fae as they affect our Insect OtherKin.”
“But my faith is in you, Plummet. You are my daughter and I know that Faery luck and magic will win you your wings, if Fate wills it.
Plummet had many things to consider which easily took the next seven years. In twenty one years many things pass in the world of the Sons of Adam, compared to a dull and cloistered life among the Fae. For one thing, the very remote nature of Plummet and Phaebee’s nest changed to being not very remote at all. Brownies pretty much went extinct, and Pixies and Phookas increased in number and persistence of attempted seductions. Elves appeared and disappeared, always threatening to leave forever. Plummet continued to be a great student of science and magic, devouring many more complex theorems than her flighty mother could tolerate.
No intellectual pursuit seemed as lofty as the object that floated towards Plummet one Autumn day. Tossing one way and the next, it seemed to be the very personification of the breeze, messy and erratic in its indecision, and utterly fascinating because of it. Sitting on her nest overlooking what had now become suburbs instead of forest, Plummet wished upon the billowy object as if it were a star. No Fae she knew traveled in such a habit, so she simply wished for it to come near. Her Faery luck made the rendezvous inevitable, and the airborn film caught itself on the branch before her.
It was white, and thin, and bore red and blue lettering. “Sam Smith’s Food-N-Go” it said, embellished by a flag of the same color scheme. Plummet examined her new toy with delight, and then, wishing that she could be as free as this plastic bag, she sighed deeply.
Her sigh seemed to be like a swarm of bees flying from her mouth, and they flew into the bag and billowed it out to the seams, lifting it and Plummet from the branch of her childhood nest. She found that the bag would gently sink if she didn’t breathe into it, and that she could alter her course and speed by how hard she blew into it and in what direction. She hung from each handhold of the bag, and made a delightful sport of swinging, racing, and shooting across the sky. The freedom which was the birthright of her species but which she had never experienced was now hers, and the joy of it caused her to soar across the countryside in a flurry of wild abandon.
Abruptly, her bag stopped moving and nearly tossed Plummet off the handholds, high above the ground. Her bag had caught itself up in a tree, and there she was forced to scramble up onto the offending branch. The bag had a big rip in it, and after she untangled it, she was not able to fill it with her breath. So here she was, stranded in a tree very far from home.
As luck would have it, though, there was another bag in a neighboring tree, and Plummet climbed over to inspect it for rips and holes.
“Hey! That’s my bag, Faery!” shouted another Fae who was resting on the branch just behind the bag. This boy seemed similar to Plummet’s kind, but like her, he had no wings.
“You look like me, and my mother. Are you an Aery-Faery or another sort? Plummet asked.
“Yes, I’m an Aery-Faery, but like you, not of my own power. I have to use a bag to fly too.”
“Are there many like us?”
“Many in our generation are born without wings, or worse,” he frowned. It is because of a kind of pesticide that the Sons of Adam used on their food plants back when our mothers were forming. They are pigs, aren’t they!” he said, and spit over his left shoulder.
“I can’t say, I have never met a pig, just seen pictures and read about them. They seem like nice enough people to me.”
“Ha ha, well see for yourself, my fellow Birth Defected, or take my advice and stay away from them!” His anger radiated with the zeal of a warrior, and his spirit seemed valiant and utterly incorruptible. Plummet’s heart twisted up in her chest. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. And then he was gone, blowing his bag before him into the sunset. “Good luck!” he hollered back towards her, although it was scarcely necessary. Within a few minutes a fresh plastic bag, “Betty’s Discount Beauty Supplies” blew right in front of her, and with a breath, she was aloft again.
As the sun set, Plummet drifted over fields and woods and even the towns and suburbs of Sons of Adam. Several times she saw the humans pointing up at her, which confused her because she knew herself to be invisible to their eyes.
‘Round about midnight, Plummet was drifting over a small town, and she heard shouts and cries and laughter, but up in the air, not from the ground. At first it seemed like a roiling cloud of smoke, dust from horses’ hooves, and then she found herself in a swarming troop of Unseelies, who were out on a midnight rade. Not having wings themselves, they were mounted on flying horses, though Plummet knew that the horses were no more than glamoured-up stalks of ragweed.
“Hey pretty lady, good job, you got all those stupid AdamSons thinking they saw a flying saucer!”
“How can they see me? I’m invisible to them!” queried Plummet.
“Ah, well then, you are, but your bag is not, and when you blow in it with your glittery Aery-Faery breath, you light it up with all kind of spaceship colors!”
Sure enough, Plummet looked up to her bag, and it was filled with lights of all colors, mesmerizing against the night sky. “Let them think what they will!” she laughed, and all the raggedy Unseelies laughed along.
“Come with us, Pretty, it would amuse us to have such a bit of fancy stuff along for the rade,” they leered.
“Well, I just will do that! Whither hence, Unseelies?”
“Heh, we’re out to go get ourselves a drink or two!”
“Certainly no more than three! On the house, as it were!”
So Plummet followed along the rade, trying not to notice that the Unseelies delighted in causing mischief and mayhem along the way, dropping lit matches over barns, bent nails over roads, Chick tract booklets over synagogues. Then with no warning they all careened down towards a convenience store, and each murmuring some spell, they flew right through the small crack between the closed and locked front doors. Not knowing the spell password, Plummet smacked into the door and bounced back to the sidewalk, where (luckily) a Styrofoam food box absorbed her fall.
She climbed up onto the trash basket in front of the store and looked in. The Unseelies were sprawled out on the floor, chugging beer and wine. She had no doubt that they could make their theft appear as the break-in of local juvenile delinquents. She sighed, and rested till nearly dawn.
From off in the distance she noticed another plastic bag that was not acting normally. It seemed to try to loft itself, but it would settle back down, perhaps tethered to a bush? Blowing into her own bag, Plummet drifted over to investigate.
Next to a concrete drainage ditch by a muddy little tributary, there was a very homely troll holding a plastic bag. “Majestic Electric Value Components.” The troll blew into his bag, which billowed but did not take him aloft, and settled back down again. “I suppose it is because I don’t have your magic glittery breath,” he said.
“I figured that any Fae could do it,” said Plummet. “You are Fae, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am a Troll, or Hill-Folk, Berger is the name.” He wore red velvet, brown tweed, green leggings, a feathered cap, and was on the heavyset side. He had bushy eyebrows, and tufts of hair growing from his ears and nostrils. A beard grew up to the hair on his head, which was almost contained by his cap. “And you are Aery-Faery, or Unseelie, by the company you keep, eh?”
“No, I was just along for the rade. I guess I wasn’t invited to their party. Not very appealing, are they?” sniffed Plummet.
“Oh, they have their good points.” His eyes seemed old and wise, and held hers in their gaze.
“Plummet,” said she, and reached out a hand. “I’m an Aery-Faery, though perhaps of a new strain that has no wings,” and she turned so he could see her back.
Berger held her hand with reverence. “Would you like to come meet my family?”
“Okay, which way?”
Berger pointed to a hole in the ground next to the concrete pipe. “Only a few days by this way.”
Plummet didn’t much like the idea of traveling by way of a musty tunnel. “I have a better idea,” she said. And then next thing he knew, Berger was airborne, hugged onto Plummet’s graceful waist, flying away behind the plastic bag and Plummet’s magic breath. Plummet liked the way he held her so gently, and even though he was quite ugly, she found his smell to be very pleasant.
Following Berger’s directions, Plummet blew the two of them towards a hill, and they settled down next to a bridge which crossed a creek. Two older Trolls ran out of a hole under the bridge to greet their son. They were taken aback by the unexpected guest, the lovely Aery-Faery. Dropping hats in hands, they made to welcome her. “Berger, Miss, welcome!” said the woman. “Berger, if you please pretty lady,” said the man, “Do come in!”
Following them into the hill, Plummet whispered to the young Berger “Are all of you called Berger? How do you tell each other apart?”
“Oh, yes, well, all of our sort are named Berger. But just between you and me, I guess you can call me Culvert. Don’t let my folks hear.”
Once inside, Plummet was plied with honey mead, bread, cheese, fruits and all sorts of baked treats. The Berger family asked her many questions about the outside world, laughed and drank. She asked them about their lives and they showed her their fine metalworks. “Swords, and the best chainmail to be had. Not many orders for that these days. But you try to stay in practice,” explained Berger-the-father.
“We make horseshoes, and plumbing fixtures now is all, truth be told,” admitted Berger-the-mother.
It turned out that Plummet’s education into sciences, especially her chosen field of the study of gravity and magnetism, were of great interest to the Bergers, and it was a very long time before they tired of the conversation. Plummet could tell that the loneliness of her childhood nest was something these genial folk would never experience, and she envied them a little. Too bad they were not prettier.
Presently, Berger Culvert took her back upside for fresh air and a walk along the creek. Stopping at the headwaters spring, he turned to her and said, “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“And you, dear Culvert, are so ugly.”
She looked directly into his big brown eyes with her wide violet eyes, and together they savored the naked honesty of the moment. After a while, a tear, but not a tear of sadness, formed in his eye. “Would you like to see me as I truly am?” he whispered.
“Do I not already? Then surely I would!” she whispered back.
“These tears will give you the power to see with Compassion,” he explained, and wiping the tear onto his ring finger, he dotted it into her left eye.
A stinging sensation made Plummet squint for a moment, but when she opened the treated eye and looked at Culvert, what she saw was a young man, handsome, genuine, and wise. Holding the Compassionate eye closed she could still see the Culvert who was ugly, non-adventurous and slow. Looking through both eyes together, the two images superimposed, then merged into a Whole. In that moment Plummet knew that she loved him, and burst into tears of joy. She hugged the Hill Man, and said, “This is the most beautiful magical gift in the world, and I will love you forever!”
By the way that he held her, she knew that the same was true for him. “Plummet, now your left eye will also hold the secret of Compassion and you can give it to whoever you wish.”
“Come!” she exclaimed, “We must go meet my mother, Phaebee!” Culvert hugged her waist and they were off.
In truth Plummet had not the least recollection of how to get home, so she just blew herself and Culvert up into the clouds and let the afternoon breeze take them where it would. Faery luck ensured that the prevailing winds just happened to take them to the nest where Plummet spent her first 21 years.
Though not much larger than Plummet, Culvert was much heavier, and the tree branch sagged under his weight. By coincidence, Phaebee was just returning for a visit. She had not noticed Plummet’s absence, because as according to the Faery flow of time, no time had passed during Plummet’s adventure.
Naturally, Plummet and Phaebee had much to catch up with, and Culvert allowed the joyful chatter and laughter to proceed with few interruptions. When it came around to Plummet offering her mother the Tears of Compassion, however, Phaebee declined. “I have other powers, enough to keep me occupied; you keep this one for yourselves!”
“But look, child, did I not teach you the Faery Faith and how it would bring you wings?” exclaimed Phaebee.
Plummet was confused, until Culvert stroked her back. He rubbed and scratched, and a film of old skin fell away on either side of her spine. Flexing her neck back in an impossible bend, Plummet saw what her mother was talking about.
There, tiny nubbins of wings sprouted. With concentration, Plummet could make them flutter and buzz, but because of their very small size, they would not fly. They were wings, though, and as beautiful, iridescent and gossamer as any Aery-Faery’s functional wings.
Plummet giggled and Phaebee beamed with pride, which seemed like a gale force wind of butterflies.
From there, Phaebee followed Plummet back to the Berger’s warren. Culvert was happy to be carried, one hand in Plummet’s hand, one foot held in Phaebee’s grasp.
News spreads quickly among the Aery-Faeries, and in no time at all a merry host, including some Unseelies, Naiads, Dwarves, Corrigans, Pixies, Gnomes and way too many Bergers to account for, had arrived for the wedding, which was a simple ceremony. Accompanied by music, Phaebee led Plummet by the hand and Berger-the-mother led Culvert by the hand. When they met in the middle, the two mothers joined the hands of their children.
The kiss that Plummet and Culvert then exchanged caused the musicians to crescendo, the Unseelies to laugh out loutishly, and the whole room filled with Phaebee’s tears, which seemed like fireworks bursting. Electricity coursed up and down Plummet’s spine, and then seemed to lodge between her tiny vestigial wings. For the first time in her life, Plummets eyebrows knotted with concern.
Other wedding guests gasped, for they could easily see the blister arise on Plummet’s back. They were shocked, even scandalized but considering the recent history of the failing population of Fae all around the world, they could not disapprove of this rare event. It made all the eldest and most long-lived sorts strain their memory back to when a Fae became pregnant at such a young age, much less upon a first kiss. Plummet’s eyes grew impossibly wide, and Culvert simply grinned a grin and winked a wink at her.
For the next seven times seven years, Plummet and Culvert worked on digging out a warren under the drainage ditch where they had first met. It became Plummet’s business to lure Sons of Adam teenagers from the nearby convenience store with the tricks of her plastic bags and glittery lights, and to anoint their eyes with the Tears of Compassion. I am sure you understand the need for such an enterprise.
And if this story of how Phaebee raised an Earthbound Faery daughter was an adventure, imagine the joys and perils of Plummet and Culvert raising their Aery-Faery boy with wings.
Princess Poysen Ivieee c 2006
Princess Poysen Ivieee ©2006
Finally during one huge high altitude loop-de-loop, and with relatively little bloodshed (appearing as a magenta fog), the baby popped out of the bump that had ridden nearly fifty years on Phaebee’s back between her wings, for that is the peculiar biology of Phaebee’s sort. To Phaebee’s surprise, the tiny parcel began to plummet towards the earth. Out of curiosity Phaebee flew down, alongside the baby Fae, keeping time with the tug of gravity. As the baby fell through the clouds, Phaebee saw its eyes open, wide, violet, and innocent. By the time the baby was approaching the treetops, Phaebee had formulated a theory that the reason the baby was falling from the sky was because it had no wings. No such reasoning troubled the child’s unwrinkled brow, and it smiled with love and trust at its mother, who by now can be understood to be utterly clueless and indifferent to the realities of the force of gravity, and what it might mean for those of us not blessed with wings.
A swooping rescue was not inevitable, for Phaebee had no idea that the terminal velocity of her baby’s fall, interrupted by the inconvenient placement of the Earth, could result in what us more-prone-to-mortality sorts would call death.
So you think that this could have been the end of this Faery baby. Well, obviously you don’t know very much about one thing about Faeries which has to do with Luck.
Phoooommmm---phhhhh! Went the puffball mushroom, when all of its three inch diameter was impacted by the two and three-quarters of an inch length of the Faery baby.
Poooo—oooph! Went a cloud of puffball spores, causing the baby and Phaebee to sneeze repeatedly, which resembled a mist of rainbows.
After the sneezing, Mother and Daughter went into a peal of laughter, and there is no lark, no canyon wren that can mimic such a tune.
“What is your name, Daughter?” asked Phaebee.
“If you will, Mother, please call me Plummet,” answered the babe.
Phaebee did not exactly approve of her daughter’s name, but you know how children will be. Not knowing exactly what to do with her non-aerial child, she leased from a dove who had built a nest much higher than usual. As a first time mother, Phaebee expected (or at least hoped or at worst convinced herself) that Plummet would develop wings at some stage in her maturation, because did not caterpillars grow wings after a time earthbound?
After the passing of seven years, Plummet asked Phaebee directly, “Mother, when am I to get my wings? I see you gambol, I see you sport, you fly here and where far away, you bring me marvelous toys and treats from many lands, but I tire of waiting in this nest while you and many other Fae fly free across the globe, exploring the stars if you will!”
Knowing that this time would come, Phaebee bluffed. “Child, it is good that you have many intentions, but it is the nature of our sort to be long lived, and one result of this is that we have long childhoods. Enjoy yourself, and your wings will come in time.”
“Send her down here!” called some Pixies and Corrigan beneath the trees. “We go by foot through the woods and valleys, we visit the towns of men on the ground, and we think it a merry life indeed! Come, mislead some oafish manchild fall into the bog and we will laugh and drink of the sport!”
Bluffing again, Phaebee warned, “You will not find a pair of wings amongst their lot, Plummet.”
So Plummet dreamed and imagined for another seven years. How would you have liked it, to be fourteen years old and still being brought worms to eat by your mother, like any robin? Of course, what Phaebee brought Plummet in the way of comestibles was far exceeded by what she was able to bring in the way of poetry, science, herbology, magic, global politics and theology. Those aerial Faeries really get out and about, you know. Plummet desired nothing more than to be one of these couriers of language, knowledge and culture. She pressed her mother further.
“Just when is the average time for a Faerie of our sorts to develop wings, dear Mother? For I am truthfully beginning to wonder if we are really the same sort of being at all. If I am to never gain my wings, how long do you intend to keep me up in this lofty nursery? Until your distant and hard won death?”
Phaebee could no longer illude her daughter. “Child, it is true that I have wondered about the truth of our relation. My own childhood is equally distant from my death, but I remember no time when I had no wings. I am sorry, daughter. Worry has crossed my brow, sparing yours. Our times in this world have more trouble than before. There are kemm-ie-kals now, brought about by the Sons of Adam, which are new to us, and we know not whether they affect the development of the Fae as they affect our Insect OtherKin.”
“But my faith is in you, Plummet. You are my daughter and I know that Faery luck and magic will win you your wings, if Fate wills it.
Plummet had many things to consider which easily took the next seven years. In twenty one years many things pass in the world of the Sons of Adam, compared to a dull and cloistered life among the Fae. For one thing, the very remote nature of Plummet and Phaebee’s nest changed to being not very remote at all. Brownies pretty much went extinct, and Pixies and Phookas increased in number and persistence of attempted seductions. Elves appeared and disappeared, always threatening to leave forever. Plummet continued to be a great student of science and magic, devouring many more complex theorems than her flighty mother could tolerate.
No intellectual pursuit seemed as lofty as the object that floated towards Plummet one Autumn day. Tossing one way and the next, it seemed to be the very personification of the breeze, messy and erratic in its indecision, and utterly fascinating because of it. Sitting on her nest overlooking what had now become suburbs instead of forest, Plummet wished upon the billowy object as if it were a star. No Fae she knew traveled in such a habit, so she simply wished for it to come near. Her Faery luck made the rendezvous inevitable, and the airborn film caught itself on the branch before her.
It was white, and thin, and bore red and blue lettering. “Sam Smith’s Food-N-Go” it said, embellished by a flag of the same color scheme. Plummet examined her new toy with delight, and then, wishing that she could be as free as this plastic bag, she sighed deeply.
Her sigh seemed to be like a swarm of bees flying from her mouth, and they flew into the bag and billowed it out to the seams, lifting it and Plummet from the branch of her childhood nest. She found that the bag would gently sink if she didn’t breathe into it, and that she could alter her course and speed by how hard she blew into it and in what direction. She hung from each handhold of the bag, and made a delightful sport of swinging, racing, and shooting across the sky. The freedom which was the birthright of her species but which she had never experienced was now hers, and the joy of it caused her to soar across the countryside in a flurry of wild abandon.
Abruptly, her bag stopped moving and nearly tossed Plummet off the handholds, high above the ground. Her bag had caught itself up in a tree, and there she was forced to scramble up onto the offending branch. The bag had a big rip in it, and after she untangled it, she was not able to fill it with her breath. So here she was, stranded in a tree very far from home.
As luck would have it, though, there was another bag in a neighboring tree, and Plummet climbed over to inspect it for rips and holes.
“Hey! That’s my bag, Faery!” shouted another Fae who was resting on the branch just behind the bag. This boy seemed similar to Plummet’s kind, but like her, he had no wings.
“You look like me, and my mother. Are you an Aery-Faery or another sort? Plummet asked.
“Yes, I’m an Aery-Faery, but like you, not of my own power. I have to use a bag to fly too.”
“Are there many like us?”
“Many in our generation are born without wings, or worse,” he frowned. It is because of a kind of pesticide that the Sons of Adam used on their food plants back when our mothers were forming. They are pigs, aren’t they!” he said, and spit over his left shoulder.
“I can’t say, I have never met a pig, just seen pictures and read about them. They seem like nice enough people to me.”
“Ha ha, well see for yourself, my fellow Birth Defected, or take my advice and stay away from them!” His anger radiated with the zeal of a warrior, and his spirit seemed valiant and utterly incorruptible. Plummet’s heart twisted up in her chest. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. And then he was gone, blowing his bag before him into the sunset. “Good luck!” he hollered back towards her, although it was scarcely necessary. Within a few minutes a fresh plastic bag, “Betty’s Discount Beauty Supplies” blew right in front of her, and with a breath, she was aloft again.
As the sun set, Plummet drifted over fields and woods and even the towns and suburbs of Sons of Adam. Several times she saw the humans pointing up at her, which confused her because she knew herself to be invisible to their eyes.
‘Round about midnight, Plummet was drifting over a small town, and she heard shouts and cries and laughter, but up in the air, not from the ground. At first it seemed like a roiling cloud of smoke, dust from horses’ hooves, and then she found herself in a swarming troop of Unseelies, who were out on a midnight rade. Not having wings themselves, they were mounted on flying horses, though Plummet knew that the horses were no more than glamoured-up stalks of ragweed.
“Hey pretty lady, good job, you got all those stupid AdamSons thinking they saw a flying saucer!”
“How can they see me? I’m invisible to them!” queried Plummet.
“Ah, well then, you are, but your bag is not, and when you blow in it with your glittery Aery-Faery breath, you light it up with all kind of spaceship colors!”
Sure enough, Plummet looked up to her bag, and it was filled with lights of all colors, mesmerizing against the night sky. “Let them think what they will!” she laughed, and all the raggedy Unseelies laughed along.
“Come with us, Pretty, it would amuse us to have such a bit of fancy stuff along for the rade,” they leered.
“Well, I just will do that! Whither hence, Unseelies?”
“Heh, we’re out to go get ourselves a drink or two!”
“Certainly no more than three! On the house, as it were!”
So Plummet followed along the rade, trying not to notice that the Unseelies delighted in causing mischief and mayhem along the way, dropping lit matches over barns, bent nails over roads, Chick tract booklets over synagogues. Then with no warning they all careened down towards a convenience store, and each murmuring some spell, they flew right through the small crack between the closed and locked front doors. Not knowing the spell password, Plummet smacked into the door and bounced back to the sidewalk, where (luckily) a Styrofoam food box absorbed her fall.
She climbed up onto the trash basket in front of the store and looked in. The Unseelies were sprawled out on the floor, chugging beer and wine. She had no doubt that they could make their theft appear as the break-in of local juvenile delinquents. She sighed, and rested till nearly dawn.
From off in the distance she noticed another plastic bag that was not acting normally. It seemed to try to loft itself, but it would settle back down, perhaps tethered to a bush? Blowing into her own bag, Plummet drifted over to investigate.
Next to a concrete drainage ditch by a muddy little tributary, there was a very homely troll holding a plastic bag. “Majestic Electric Value Components.” The troll blew into his bag, which billowed but did not take him aloft, and settled back down again. “I suppose it is because I don’t have your magic glittery breath,” he said.
“I figured that any Fae could do it,” said Plummet. “You are Fae, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am a Troll, or Hill-Folk, Berger is the name.” He wore red velvet, brown tweed, green leggings, a feathered cap, and was on the heavyset side. He had bushy eyebrows, and tufts of hair growing from his ears and nostrils. A beard grew up to the hair on his head, which was almost contained by his cap. “And you are Aery-Faery, or Unseelie, by the company you keep, eh?”
“No, I was just along for the rade. I guess I wasn’t invited to their party. Not very appealing, are they?” sniffed Plummet.
“Oh, they have their good points.” His eyes seemed old and wise, and held hers in their gaze.
“Plummet,” said she, and reached out a hand. “I’m an Aery-Faery, though perhaps of a new strain that has no wings,” and she turned so he could see her back.
Berger held her hand with reverence. “Would you like to come meet my family?”
“Okay, which way?”
Berger pointed to a hole in the ground next to the concrete pipe. “Only a few days by this way.”
Plummet didn’t much like the idea of traveling by way of a musty tunnel. “I have a better idea,” she said. And then next thing he knew, Berger was airborne, hugged onto Plummet’s graceful waist, flying away behind the plastic bag and Plummet’s magic breath. Plummet liked the way he held her so gently, and even though he was quite ugly, she found his smell to be very pleasant.
Following Berger’s directions, Plummet blew the two of them towards a hill, and they settled down next to a bridge which crossed a creek. Two older Trolls ran out of a hole under the bridge to greet their son. They were taken aback by the unexpected guest, the lovely Aery-Faery. Dropping hats in hands, they made to welcome her. “Berger, Miss, welcome!” said the woman. “Berger, if you please pretty lady,” said the man, “Do come in!”
Following them into the hill, Plummet whispered to the young Berger “Are all of you called Berger? How do you tell each other apart?”
“Oh, yes, well, all of our sort are named Berger. But just between you and me, I guess you can call me Culvert. Don’t let my folks hear.”
Once inside, Plummet was plied with honey mead, bread, cheese, fruits and all sorts of baked treats. The Berger family asked her many questions about the outside world, laughed and drank. She asked them about their lives and they showed her their fine metalworks. “Swords, and the best chainmail to be had. Not many orders for that these days. But you try to stay in practice,” explained Berger-the-father.
“We make horseshoes, and plumbing fixtures now is all, truth be told,” admitted Berger-the-mother.
It turned out that Plummet’s education into sciences, especially her chosen field of the study of gravity and magnetism, were of great interest to the Bergers, and it was a very long time before they tired of the conversation. Plummet could tell that the loneliness of her childhood nest was something these genial folk would never experience, and she envied them a little. Too bad they were not prettier.
Presently, Berger Culvert took her back upside for fresh air and a walk along the creek. Stopping at the headwaters spring, he turned to her and said, “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“And you, dear Culvert, are so ugly.”
She looked directly into his big brown eyes with her wide violet eyes, and together they savored the naked honesty of the moment. After a while, a tear, but not a tear of sadness, formed in his eye. “Would you like to see me as I truly am?” he whispered.
“Do I not already? Then surely I would!” she whispered back.
“These tears will give you the power to see with Compassion,” he explained, and wiping the tear onto his ring finger, he dotted it into her left eye.
A stinging sensation made Plummet squint for a moment, but when she opened the treated eye and looked at Culvert, what she saw was a young man, handsome, genuine, and wise. Holding the Compassionate eye closed she could still see the Culvert who was ugly, non-adventurous and slow. Looking through both eyes together, the two images superimposed, then merged into a Whole. In that moment Plummet knew that she loved him, and burst into tears of joy. She hugged the Hill Man, and said, “This is the most beautiful magical gift in the world, and I will love you forever!”
By the way that he held her, she knew that the same was true for him. “Plummet, now your left eye will also hold the secret of Compassion and you can give it to whoever you wish.”
“Come!” she exclaimed, “We must go meet my mother, Phaebee!” Culvert hugged her waist and they were off.
In truth Plummet had not the least recollection of how to get home, so she just blew herself and Culvert up into the clouds and let the afternoon breeze take them where it would. Faery luck ensured that the prevailing winds just happened to take them to the nest where Plummet spent her first 21 years.
Though not much larger than Plummet, Culvert was much heavier, and the tree branch sagged under his weight. By coincidence, Phaebee was just returning for a visit. She had not noticed Plummet’s absence, because as according to the Faery flow of time, no time had passed during Plummet’s adventure.
Naturally, Plummet and Phaebee had much to catch up with, and Culvert allowed the joyful chatter and laughter to proceed with few interruptions. When it came around to Plummet offering her mother the Tears of Compassion, however, Phaebee declined. “I have other powers, enough to keep me occupied; you keep this one for yourselves!”
“But look, child, did I not teach you the Faery Faith and how it would bring you wings?” exclaimed Phaebee.
Plummet was confused, until Culvert stroked her back. He rubbed and scratched, and a film of old skin fell away on either side of her spine. Flexing her neck back in an impossible bend, Plummet saw what her mother was talking about.
There, tiny nubbins of wings sprouted. With concentration, Plummet could make them flutter and buzz, but because of their very small size, they would not fly. They were wings, though, and as beautiful, iridescent and gossamer as any Aery-Faery’s functional wings.
Plummet giggled and Phaebee beamed with pride, which seemed like a gale force wind of butterflies.
From there, Phaebee followed Plummet back to the Berger’s warren. Culvert was happy to be carried, one hand in Plummet’s hand, one foot held in Phaebee’s grasp.
News spreads quickly among the Aery-Faeries, and in no time at all a merry host, including some Unseelies, Naiads, Dwarves, Corrigans, Pixies, Gnomes and way too many Bergers to account for, had arrived for the wedding, which was a simple ceremony. Accompanied by music, Phaebee led Plummet by the hand and Berger-the-mother led Culvert by the hand. When they met in the middle, the two mothers joined the hands of their children.
The kiss that Plummet and Culvert then exchanged caused the musicians to crescendo, the Unseelies to laugh out loutishly, and the whole room filled with Phaebee’s tears, which seemed like fireworks bursting. Electricity coursed up and down Plummet’s spine, and then seemed to lodge between her tiny vestigial wings. For the first time in her life, Plummets eyebrows knotted with concern.
Other wedding guests gasped, for they could easily see the blister arise on Plummet’s back. They were shocked, even scandalized but considering the recent history of the failing population of Fae all around the world, they could not disapprove of this rare event. It made all the eldest and most long-lived sorts strain their memory back to when a Fae became pregnant at such a young age, much less upon a first kiss. Plummet’s eyes grew impossibly wide, and Culvert simply grinned a grin and winked a wink at her.
For the next seven times seven years, Plummet and Culvert worked on digging out a warren under the drainage ditch where they had first met. It became Plummet’s business to lure Sons of Adam teenagers from the nearby convenience store with the tricks of her plastic bags and glittery lights, and to anoint their eyes with the Tears of Compassion. I am sure you understand the need for such an enterprise.
And if this story of how Phaebee raised an Earthbound Faery daughter was an adventure, imagine the joys and perils of Plummet and Culvert raising their Aery-Faery boy with wings.
Princess Poysen Ivieee c 2006
Princess Poysen Ivieee ©2006
Green Dragon
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GREEN DRAGON FAERIES
The Green Dragon is an infrequently encountered herb of ancient lineage. Related to the more well known Jack in the Pulpit, it has a similar life history, except perhaps for this:
Rarely witnessed by human eyes, the male Green Dragon Faery goes about in early spring. Arrested by the beauty of the season, nature impels him to please himself in the private bottomlands near lovely creeks. His seed is let out upon the ground, and from this, the flower arises in spring.
During the remainder of the spring and summer season, the herb is known only by the unusual palmate leaves, signature of the male faery’s handiwork.
Later on in the summer season, the inseminated stalks of the Green Dragon herb appear as a fruiting body, a cluster of jewel-toned red berries, rising perhaps two or three inches from the soil. With no further interaction, any number of these berries eventually falls to the forest floor, where they stand as good a chance of any of sprouting into a new Green Dragon plant. Many berry stalks, however, persist long into the fall. These appear irresistibly in the fantasy of the female Green Dragon Faery who happens by. Called by nature, she mounts the stalks of berries to satisfy herself. Inevitably, one or more of the berries is dislodged into her womb during the experience. These berries, in a favorable year, take root into her womb to later be born as the next generation of Green Dragon Faerie.
GREEN DRAGON FAERIES
The Green Dragon is an infrequently encountered herb of ancient lineage. Related to the more well known Jack in the Pulpit, it has a similar life history, except perhaps for this:
Rarely witnessed by human eyes, the male Green Dragon Faery goes about in early spring. Arrested by the beauty of the season, nature impels him to please himself in the private bottomlands near lovely creeks. His seed is let out upon the ground, and from this, the flower arises in spring.
During the remainder of the spring and summer season, the herb is known only by the unusual palmate leaves, signature of the male faery’s handiwork.
Later on in the summer season, the inseminated stalks of the Green Dragon herb appear as a fruiting body, a cluster of jewel-toned red berries, rising perhaps two or three inches from the soil. With no further interaction, any number of these berries eventually falls to the forest floor, where they stand as good a chance of any of sprouting into a new Green Dragon plant. Many berry stalks, however, persist long into the fall. These appear irresistibly in the fantasy of the female Green Dragon Faery who happens by. Called by nature, she mounts the stalks of berries to satisfy herself. Inevitably, one or more of the berries is dislodged into her womb during the experience. These berries, in a favorable year, take root into her womb to later be born as the next generation of Green Dragon Faerie.
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