not our fault

Today I heard an NPR report about US troops shooting and then bombing a group of Iraqis, killing 27 people. They blew up houses. They flew over, shooting people as they ran or cowered behind walls. It turns out that it was all a mistake, although they didn't call it a mistake. It was due to faulty intelligence, but it was a “good shoot,” according to a commanding officer. Well, that’s a relief anyway.

Dance on Their Graves

I have every current Oregon Book Award contestant book I can find sitting in a pile on my table. I spent yesterday reading All God's Children, Inside the Dark and Violent World of Street Families, by Rene Denfield. A well- written, important and compelling book. Denfield focuses on a particular Portland group of street kids that was violent, sadistic, and disturbingly anonmic.
anomic---alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals
I hung out with street kids when I left home at 17 and lived in Madison, but in those days it was all peace and love. I don’t think anyone would have tortured or killed anyone else, or burned them up or killed their dog. We saw ourselves as part of a revolution. We were the real thing, the ones who had left our families, who had left school and everything we knew, who didn’t need any of it. We were inspired by Jerry Rubin. He never talked about killing anyone, from what I can recall, but Anita Hoffman did say we would dance on their graves. It was a metaphor, I think.

tell the BLM no

This is one of the trees that will be cut if The BLM's new forest management proposal, WOPR, (Washington Oregon Plan Revision) goes through. This tree is in the Alsea Valley, Oregon.

the good part of rain

It's raining and all the little creeks and rivers are filling. Last night the salmon began to swim up stream.

what's it about? (I always ask the same thing.)

“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word of the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what the story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story.”
~Flannery O'Connor

Oregon Book Award

Last week Literary Arts sent me the list of finalists for The Oregon Book Award. I was reading the nominees to see who was chosen for kids' books, thinking about the library, you know. Then...hmm...hmm... wonder who they picked for the novel........ !?me?! What a great surprise.