A 9/11 Letter

This is what I wrote to the FCC regarding Naudet's 9/11 documentary because of network reluctance to air the documentary again for fear of being fined:
TO: Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.govCommissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.govCommissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.govCommissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: dtaylortateweb@fcc.govCommissioner Robert McDowell: Robert.McDowell@fcc.gov


Dear Mr. Chairman and Commissioners,

This email is to express my concerns and desire that the Naudet 9/11 documentary NOT be forced to edit out the strong languages of interviewees and that the stations who do choose to broadcast it NOT be fined for allowing the language.

It is not in our best interest as Americans to sanitize this important documentary - the event was too profound and the strong language of the participants is reflective of their genuine experience and emotions. To censor the language, to prohibit it, or to attempt to "sweeten" it, diminishes the valid experiences of the people who lived through that day. You can be sure those people in New York - civilians, cops, fire department, first responders and all on the streets as it was happening were not saying "golly", "shazam", "gosh", "darn", "shucks", or "oh, my stars & garters!".

No broadcaster should be faced with being fined for presenting this documentary in it's entirety, uncensored. Yet I read that many CBS affiliates will not show it to honor 9/11's memory for fear of reprisal and fines. We are Americans and this is a free speech issue. This documentary is not prurient, it is not indecent. There are times when "strong language", including the F word, must be allowed. We are not enfants covert who need to be protected from the truth of other' people's experiences, narratives or emotions. Truth has it's own voice and censoring the voice of truth, punishing those who would show that by fining them is unacceptable to me as an American. It is not what I spent 5 years of my young adulthood serving in the military to support.

Cordially,
Morgan (withheld in blog)

League of Women Voters Event

Candidates Forum NM_League of Women Voters Sep

For those of you who are resident in the Greater Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Metropolitan
areas and Rio Rancho/Sandoval County Metropolitan areas:

The League of Women Voters invites you to attend a candidates forum for the Commissioner of Public Lands.

Guests: Patrick Lyons and Jim Baca

When: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.

Where: First Unitarian Church, 3710 Carlisle NE (SW corner of Carlisle and Comanche. Enter the parking lot on Comanche or off of southbound Carlisle.

This forum is sponsored by the LWV/ABC Natural Resources Committee to help voters become better aware of the issues related to the administration of lands held in trust by the State Land Office.

Information on the administration of public lands is of great importance.

The State Land Office manages approximately 9 million acres of land and 13 million oil, gas and mineral acres in support of public schools, universities, hospitals, charitable purpose and penitentiares.

A Great Charity

Silent Bed

my beloved sleeps beside me soundly,

my soul yearning for his embrace;

and i wonder again at how our bed became

so quiet;and i envy

my curvy friends silently

when they joke so lightly about

husbands and passionate nights

and still i curl into him for solace

when burdens weigh heavily,

there is comfort in his steady breath,

the way his foot kicks the bed,

a brush of his workman's callused hand

against my shoulder, and i remember us

as lovers/younger less care worn

before swift waters ran under

our metaphorical bridges.

thusly i fall into night's slumber.

copyright 8/22/06 Morgan Sheridan

aka Abqlady2

Haditha on my mind

Haditha, Iraq. American soldiers rape and murder a 14 year old girl and her family. The soldiers had been drinking. They discussed it. Pre-meditated it. Did it. And they excuse it on the basis of combat stress, seeing their friends get killed by the insurgents and a few other lame fuckwitted things. Bullshit and bollocks! Don't you fall for those excuses. Noone in that group of soldiers had the stones to be a man, put himself in front of his buddies and say "Stop, this is wrong!" before it got started.

Whose children are these men anyway? Whose brothers, sons, cousins, friends are they? I want to horsewhip 'em and brand 'em. Put a big fat R for rapist on one cheek and WC for war criminal on the other, even though the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits such punishment as "cruel and unusual." I wanna be able to recognize these men as the walk down any street in any town in America, just so I can step aside and turn my back to them. To be able to publicly shun them and so that others may do so as well. I'm not sorry about that desire.

I think in this case, asking whose children are these that can do such things IS appropriate. Their parents, families and friends SHOULD be mortified: what they contributed to in the upbringing of those men was NOT good enough to make even one of them say what they were about to do was wrong and make an effort to stop even at the risk of their own life and limb. I recommend a paper written by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "Defining Deviancy Down" which appeared in American Scholar, Winter, 1993.

I'm disgusted. This is not the conduct we should expect from, or accept from, our American soldiers; men who are ostensibly our brothers, husbands, sons, cousins and friends should be better than this.

Here's a few articles from the UCMJ that may be applicable to those men in terms of what the can be charged with and what the potential punishments can be imposed:

893. ART. 93. CRUELTY AND MALTREATMENT

Any person subject to this chapter who is guilty of cruelty toward, or oppression or maltreatment of, any person subject to his orders shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

899. ART. 99. MISBEHAVIOR BEFORE THE ENEMY

Any person subject to this chapter who before or in the presence of the enemy--
(1) runs away;
(2) shamefully abandons, surrenders, or delivers up any command, unit, place, or military property which it is his duty to defend;
(3) through disobedience, neglect, or intentional misconduct endangers the safety of any such command, unit, place, or military property;
(4) casts away his arms or ammunition;
(5) is guilty of cowardly conduct;
(6) quits his place of duty to plunder or pillage;

912. ART. 112. DRUNK ON DUTY

Any person subject to this chapter other than a sentinel or look-out, who is found drunk on duty, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

916. ART. 116. RIOT OR BREACH OF PEACE

Any person subject to this chapter who causes or participates in any riot or breach of the peace shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

918. ART. 118. MURDER

Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he--
(1) has a premeditated design to kill;
(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;
(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or
(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape robbery, or aggravated arson; is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.

920. ART. 120. RAPE AND CARNAL KNOWLEDGE

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife, by force and without consent, is guilty of rape and shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
(b) Any person subject to this chapter who, under circumstances not amounting to rape, commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife who has not attained the age of sixteen years, is guilty of carnal knowledge and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
(c) Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete either of these offenses.

Now I'm thinking I'm generally moderate, and I generally have liberal views. But not in this. There are some things I'm just conservative about and this is one of them. IF there is to be any good outcome from this clusterfuck known as Iraq, it has to happen at the "hearts and minds" level. We have to connect as human beings. But any tenuous connections that have been established are endangered by the outrageous level of misconduct on the parts of these frontline soldiers.

There are several failures that need to be remedied AND punished and they occur along several levels of hierarchy. Clearly there is a failure of leadership -- even a grunt has to understand that even in a war, even at the pitch of emotion from battle and the hardships of battle - fear, loss of friends, terror, stress and alertness, there are things that NO honorable soldier does. Ever. Period. Yet in this, even the careers of officers and generals need to be unmade; undone as shameful examples of what happens when standards of moral conduct are not adhered to. These acts dishonor us as a people in the eyes of the world because they violate what are historically regarded crimes against humanity. There are rules of warfare and international law can be brought to bear if they are violated. Look at the war in Bosnia for examples of where the World Court is trying war crimes trials in the Hague.

You don't make war on civilians. It's uncivilized. You don't make war on children. A 14 year old is still a child. You don't rape or pillage. You don't commit murder. Killing the enemy is one thing, but murder is another. And if the enemy has laid down their arms and you kill him or her, it's murder. Simple stuff. And we citizens at home cannot condone or excuse this conduct. At any level. We went thru similar in Viet Nam with the Mi Lai massacre. You cannot win the hearts and minds of a people when even a small percentage of frontline troops break with discipline and violate the rules of war and common decency.

We lose moral ground over our right to outrage at events like 9/11, when most of us wept over the men and women who had been made war on by Al-Quaeda on our turf, when we turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to our own shortcomings and bad blood. If we keep silent and swallow the bullshit "these things happen, it was war," excuses of those soldiers and their leaders. There must be accountability. Clearly the perpetrators must face the heaviest consequences possible. They were the instigators acting without orders, breaching the peace.

In discussing this topic in other venues with folks and what to do punitively, some of the suggestions are brutal-- from castration to hanging to stoning. My own response is as well. And I would also agree with human rights groups who would see that kind of punishment as barbaric as well. I think precedent actually exists due to past cases in Japan and Okinawa during the 1980s and 90s where US armed force's members have committed rapes and murders who have been surrendered to Japanese courts for trial and sentencing. One person I know suggested turning these men over to Iraqi authorities for trial and punishment. Now, do I realistically think for a minute that they would balk at executing these soldiers? While I'm not comfortable with the idea (or my own punitive fantasy, for that matter), I think it may be the correct, moral thing to do.

Their Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains all the way up the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense and the President must also stand forth and account: "Why did you not expect, demand better of them? Just where are your moral standards anyway? "

I served. I was an ordinary person and was "just average" as being an airman went. I was a one term enlistee and during that time, I played by military rules and even traditions. Because of that grounding, I am outraged at these events. I think vets and active duty alike should be outraged -- enough to do something about it. As for the politicians who got us into this mess in Iraq to begin with: Well, for those of us US voters, I remind you gentle readers that we have mid-term elects coming up soon! So I hope you will do the right honorable thing and make them accountable for this when you vote.

(And in this I include the incidents of Abu Ghraib as well.)

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein 03/14/1879 - 04/18/1955

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. John F. Kennedy 05/29/1917 - 11/22/1963

Diagnosis

My brother's diagnosis is in. T'ain't good at all. His cancer is in the pancreas. I think I'd like to be about 5 right now, so I would still be years away from knowing the mortality rate for pancreatic cancer. Yet. I am not 5 and I do know the mortality rates. I can't fix it.

Some people may think I'm being cold or putting him in an early grave. That's far from the truth. I look at facts as a way of coping with the unimaginable and to keep my emotions from running out of control. He got a raw deal coming into the game when our Dad died 3 months after he was born. Now he's got another raw deal. I don't see any justice or purpose in this. Certainly not proportion or chronological progression.

Here... In New Mexico

I love summer nights here in New Mexico. The evening air typically cools by as much as 20 degrees from the daytime temperatures.

When I was a teenager I often snuck out my window and wandered around aimlessly, padding along different neighborhood streets in my Keds. I'd like to say they were sturdy, but my big toe could wear a hole in the fabric in less than 5 weeks. I loved the feel of the night breeze on my skin, just a whisper along the hair on my arms to tingle. I'd try to sneak up on stalking cats and tickle their ears - sometimes I was successful. There was a lot that once had a beautiful mulberry growing on it that was perfect for climbing and it had large limbs I could perch and lounge around on and in. It was a perfect place to hang out in the dark of night, to feel at ease in.

At night, one's senses become attenuated. On the mesa I'd sit nestled in silken sand and listen to the sounds of night. I could hear the whisper of a bat's wings beating in the air, the padding amble of a stray dog, it's paws crunching sere grasses beneath them. The scrabble of mice as their feet dug into the dirt under clumps of grass as owls hunted them could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

It was darker at night back then. The city wasn't as large as it is now. I'd pillow my head on a rock and stare up into the night sky seeing the Milky Way spilled into the dark and the faint blues, yellows and reds of distant stars, their light like pinpricks through velvet on still nights, and twinkling, coruscating like flickering fireflies when winds stirred dust up in the higher levels of the atmosphere. If my wanderings in the night took me up into the foothills, I'd look down into the bowl of the city and the lights looked as if some careless dragon had spilled out chestfuls of diamonds, citrines, rubies, sapphires, garnets and tourmaline for some invisible seamstresses to embroider onto swaths of rich black velvet. Light and sound were entirely mutable - one moment dimmed and hushed, another harsh and shattering.

Night was the mystery I embraced, the solace I sought. In the darkness, I could merge with shadows and pass in silence. It was nothing I feared, though a thunderstorm and the winds presaging it could make my body tingle and tremble with anticipation as I turned into a storm runner, racing my way home as the sky gods threw their bolts of lightning around the heavens, limning the clouds with silvers and greys and black.

As I got older, of course I found the night was made for other things - like forbidden sex, lover's sex. Loosing myself in hot embraces, sweaty skin sticking and slipping while the sounds of neighborhood traffic went by, belly taut partly in fear of discovery. Night for hanging out drinking coffee, flirting with the guys at Kaps, sometimes seeing a hot guy like Indio or Smitty and set my cap for them, wondering if I could get them to take me to their beds. We were young - healthy human animals and our blood was hot, hormones pumping through us and driving the need to mate, often and to cherish our body's dance of lust and pleasure, sensation and satiation...or just sometimes could we just go for a ride on your motorcycle, please? Another way to dance with the night! oh yah...

Of shadows and secrets I know much. Camping in the mountains, I stroll along familiar paths at festival events where fires light the faces of drummers and dancers circle the fires, men and women stripped to their waist or more, swaying, chanting, intoning the names of gods and goddesses remembered over time. I've danced around those fires myself, and still do, but not so much now. My bones quarrel sooner now, so I slip back into the embracing darkness, content that those younger, more supple have assumed their rightful places in the night dance. I am a daughter of the moon, daughter of night

My Brother Jay

Tonight my younger brother Jay is on my plate. Of six children, he is the only boy and the youngest. I'm eight years older.My brother has year ago May, my brother was diagnosed with cancer, a lymphoma whose name I can't pronounce. Over the last 5+ years he has also been living with HIV. This evening I got a call from my sister C. letting me know that his cancer is no longer in remission and it is likely involving the liver, bilary duct or the pancreas.

In every decade of my life, I have know or known of at least two or three people who've had cancer; some lived with it for a decade or two, others went quickly. My mom went quickly. And now my brother is in The Fight. His downturn began 5 weeks ago, but he thought he was shaking off something else. I'm eating chocolate ice cream out of the carton and trying to keep my mind focused on facts. Facts are simple, managable. Emotional eating. Inside my memories jumble and collide with emotions and I am afraid of losing control.

I put mom's Buick through the garage on his 5th birthday. We'd been playing in it, and I was the being the hot-shot big sister. How we came to be playing in her car, I really don't remember. Mom was out with a friend of hers and we were being babysat by 'Dette who was snogging with her boyfriend in the living room. I guess Jay and I somehow released the parking brake and the car rolled some in the drive. Now I mentioned previously that I'm an ACOA. That is "Adult Child of Alcoholism." Back then I was simply a freaked out candidate for becoming really anal. Seeing how far the car moved, I reasoned that Mom Would Have-A-Cow(tm) and All Holy Hell(tm)Would Break Loose because, when drunk, mom could be a raging terrifying frightful bitch and I didn't want that on my brother's birthday. And I could NOT predict whether she would be surly or funny either. So I figured : "I'd better get the car parked exactly the way it was or mom's gonna kill me." My best thinking at work. Ha! I got out of the car and eyeballed the tire tracks and figured I needed to pull forward about 6 inches. That went fine. No problem. Got out to assess whether I hit the mark, and thought I missed, so I backed up again, and then when I went forward, instead of hitting the brake, my foot slipped on the gas pedal, and into the garage I plowed. Oh what a mess! I was stunned. Jay stood on the sidewalk looking on in horror and when I got out of the car and went over to him, Dette blasted out of the house and Jay was like "You've fuckin' wrecked my birthday." and then Dette shouted at me to go get her dad. I remember going up to Dette's parent's house and getting her dad to come down, and then I went in the house to call the cops because I "knew" an accident report needed to be filed (funny thing the thinks kids pick up). Jay and both were a mass of anxiety for similar reasons - his birthday was ruined and I was the ruination of it all. Mom showed up home with her friend Erna about the same time a motorcycle cop arrived. There is something sort of spectacular about a car in a house. Not the thing you want to come home to, but its a stop in the tracks kind of thing. After sorting out a few facts, Mom asked who called the cops and J., Dette, Mr. 'Ville, and my sisters all pointed: at me. She asked me why in an oddly calm tone and even though I was shaking in my shoes, in the way only a kid can, I explained: "I thought that's what you're supposed to do when you have a car accident." (And I honestly thought that, too.) Mom paused for a moment and the next thing I knew she was roaring with laughter and I could see the tension slide off Jays young shoulders. His party went on, and all had a good time, but I ruined his birthday and that's been our story ever since. You have NO idea how relieved we were that Mom had laughed instead of flying into a rage. But some drunks you just can't predict, y'know?

We didn't have much in the way of sibling rivalry and by the time he was an adolescent, I was already living away from home on my own. We always connected with mom vis a vis language - talking, conversing, playing with words, sharpening our tongues and wits and honing them to a fine edge. We shared the salacious pleasure of language used to draw forth responses, to teach, cajole, entertain and wrestle and spar. Unlike me, they also shared the pleasure gotten when words were used to hurt like a whip. I can, in self defence, but it is not to my taste and I prefer to keep to softer speech.

Jay and I are simpatico on many things and our relationship is a generally agreeable, no-fuss no muss type, which is pretty good for siblings, I reckon. We agree in principle on a lot of subjects and it is food and cooking, seasoned lightly with politics, that we mostly talk about. I'm an good cook and have flashes of creativity. Even had a few recipes published in Bon Apetit back in the mid 80s. He became a chef who worked in places like San Francisco's Carnelian Room and the St. Francis Hotel. His practice dishes when he had ambitions to compete in the Bocuse d' Or were as visually beautiful as they were savory. Mom was not a very good cook, so we came to our cooking styles in self defence. He made a profession out of it while I'm a hobbyist with it. And briefly, he had his own place, BITE, on Market St. But then he got cancer. And now my mind turns on memories and impressions and the fear I feel seeing him join our sister Karla who has long been ill with M.S. and seeing their lives passing in too early a sunset.

Today I struggle with these things I cannot change and seek refuge in the Serenity Prayer and comfort in still laughing at the way Jay sandbagged me good on the 4th of July.

In the grass
in my yard
I stretch sleekly
warmed in sunlight
like a cat
on my back
reaching
lazy
lazy
lazy.


Copyright: Morgan 6/4/06

Major Life Events - The Short List

What major events do you think shaped your life? I think of major events as something that happened that made you stop and say "WOW! This is good! important! mind-bending! heavy! sad!" and so on. You know - the kind of stuff that led to you growing up in the world and made you conscious of what was going on around you.

Some of my life events were:

• The Kennedy-Nixon race.
• Learning to read -absolutely life altering.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis.
• My father's death 7/23/63.
• The Space Race.
• The 60s.
• Being a "baby-hip" and getting into the arts, hanging out with writers and painters, as well as bikers, hippies, and other assorted social misfits.
• Discovering writers like Khalil Gibran, Herman Hesse, Constanting P. Cavafy, Ursala K. LeGuin, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Thomas Merton, and many others.
• My Mom becoming sober in A.A. starting in 1972.
• Joining and serving in the Air Force from 1973 to 1979.
• Getting married while in the Air Force and separated by 1979.
• Going to college and getting divorced.
• Graduating college.
• Marrying my beloved 2nd husband.
• My Mom's death - still sober after all those years.
• Opening our marriage after 20 years together.