C’est Finis!....sort of

*Cough*Sniff*Hack*Wah-CHOOO!*

‘scuze me, I hab a cowld.

Which of course came on Saturday, or joyous abandon, right before the move. Now, on top of training my replacement (nice gal, she’ll figure it all out) and helping coordinate and prep for the company Holiday Bash, I was moving as well with all the rapturous happiness that entails.

Now I could give a blow by blow account of everything that went wrong that reduced me to screaming “FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” at the top of my lungs (let me tell you, primal scream therapy works wonders for those instances…though perhaps not in a car on Hawthorne Boulevard) but the truth is: We’re all here in northern AZ (albeit a day late) , my Mom made me cocoa this morning and my Dad is in the spot I remember from my earliest childhood, albeit a few states removed: in a rocking chair by a Franklin stove, reading.

So what if the move was hell itself?

I don’t care anymore.

Ain’t folks amazing? :)

So after an eight hour drive up the hill, my cats are in a boarding facility, my dog is asleep in the guest room and I’m here catching up with you all.

First of all: Happy Yule/Winter Solstice to all!

The Neo-Pagan calendar is based on the seasons and agricultural life of ancient Europe. Samhain (or Halloween) is our years end in which the Old God dies and we wrap up all the magickal work we have done during the year and close out the event in our lives that need to be left behind. We then enter “the Dark Time”, a time in ancient Europe meant that after the final harvests and storing of goods for the winter, the people spent in quiet. There was hunting to be sure, but the daily grind of agrarian society came to a halt. So in modern time we also treat this period as a time for rest, reflection and making plan for the coming year.

Depending on which sect of Neo-Paganism you speak to, Winter Solstice or Candlemass are the beginning of the New Year. I’m a traditionalist: It’s Winter Solstice, the new infant God is born and he begins to take back the sky once more in the form of the Sun, begin the cycle of the season once again.

Normally the forms of ritual include a sunrise service and lighting of the Yule log and candles to welcome the Sun back into our lives and make wishes for the New Year. Since I am in transition, my celebration will be greatly reduced this year. However, since on this day of transition between the new year and the old, the Gods will be understanding since I myself am transitioning between not only one side of the country and the other, but between the life I had to do and the greater challenge of life I want for myself.

So welcome My Lord and Lady, let your glorious lifecycle begin anew. :D

News, etc.

“Happy Holidays.” It’s the polite thing to say to someone whose religion you are unsure of, not to mention being a nice wish for them to enjoy the entire season.

Get over it.

Iraq Elections almost went smoothly. Oh well.

Bush Admits to Spying on his Own People. Let’s just drop the “spying on Americans” crap and call it what it is. “Spying” makes it sound cool like ALIAS, what it’s really called is “violating our rights to privacy”. It’s called violating our most basic civil liberties. And can anyone tell me how many terrorists we have caught violating American’s civil liberties? I didn’t think so. “Yeah, that system to link up the FBI, CIA, NSA and Immigation computers as they’re all on the same wavelength? Put that on the back burner, but the group that didn’t reveal the existance of terrorist transmissions until after September 11th? You guys go wiretap American citizens.”

What a scumbag.

Are these people completely mad? My Gawd, if we wanted a sign of how far the country has fallen away from the Ideals of it’s forefathers, this is it. These people don’t even know what it means to be an American anymore…if they ever did to begin with.

Isn’t this an impeachable offense? Can we please get rid of him now?

Oh wait. Cheney first. Then Bush.

Congress has allocated 29 billion to Hurricane relief….and the party of “fiscal responsibility” allocated another 50 billion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while attacking aid to the Middle Class and Poor.

However, the filibuster of the Patriot Act worked, sort of, so while it has been re-extended, it has not been signed into permanent law and that useless pork project called drilling in the ANWR has gone the way of the dodo as well. So it’s not all bad.

China Has Second Toxic Spill in a Six Weeks

Someone want to tell me again why the EPA is a bad idea?

I’m going to go drink OJ now and curl back up in bed. The world can go away for a little while more. :P

Further Notes

I will say that on my way up the hill here I stopped by the Hope Pit Stop, the gas station with the most Dale Jr. crap I have ever seen in my life outside a souvenier hauler (of course, I was wearing my Elliott Sadler hat at the time): Posters, life size cut outs, neon lights, stickers. So for all those that glowered at me for my Dale Jr. baseball jersey, I don’t feel so bad anymore! So double :P

Thoughts in Transition...

So What Does Tookie Leave Behind?

It is an odd anomaly that a state that has as “liberal” by reputation as California does activity employs the death penalty. Tookie Williams’ execution brought that dichotomy to the forefront of California minds again. I’m not familiar enough with the case to argue his guilt or innocence. While there is a good case to be made against him, the DA made a big mess of it. The question that people were thinking about the most was “is the death penalty justice?”

Don’t get me wrong, I do support the death penalty in highly restricted uses such as serial murders. I do not think the guy driving the car at the hold-up gone bad deserves to die, but people who are obviously beyond the capability of rehabilitation, such as serial killers, are simply a drain on society. Either they are a drain on it physically when they are free or they are a drain on it economically when they are incarcerated. So for me it’s matter of cold dollars and sense. There was no point in keeping Jeffery Dahmer alive and the guy who beat him to death saved the state of Wisconsin a million dollars or so. But that is not justice, that’s economics.

Justice is defined as “the quality of being just or fair.” In that sense by all means execution of murders is justice in the “eye for and eye” world view. And while my family has been fortunate enough, thank the Gods, to have been spared from violent crime, I can certainly understand where a family who has lost would feel some peace and some closure upon seeing the death of the person that took their loved one from them.

But “justice” has other meanings. In the Catholic church, justice along with prudence, temperance and fortitude, is one of the four cardinal virtues upon which the world and/or all moral virtue is balanced. In that sense “Justice” is defined as “Our constant and permanent determination to give everyone his or her rightful due.”

Their rightful due…

What is that? How do we determine that? Through a court of law we determine someone’ guilt or innocence, but how do we determine one’s rightful due if they are guilty? Ignoring the vast disparity in punishments between white collar crime and steel crimes, what is a rightful due? Dictionary defines it as “rightful” as “just” and “due” as “debt”. But is that what they are getting? Combined with prudence and temperance, does execution sound like a virtue in action to you? I mean yeah, society may give them a rightful due now after they have committed the crime, but did they get a rightful due when they were bounced around a vastly over-crowed and under-funded foster care system or when the government cut public school funding? Were we giving them “just due” when we created a country that required both their parents to work in most economic classes in order to support the family” Were we being fair when our media taught young people to be grossly materialistic without giving them a proper sense of right and wrong, a work ethic or the environment that would foster their advancement? We do not give them just due then, why should we take delicious pleasure in granting them “just due” now?

I’m not saying that a bad upbringing excuses any criminal from their personal responsibility, plenty of people have had crappy childhoods and come out productive members of society, but when we are thinking about how to approach the problem of crime the fact is capital punishment coupled the incredibly overcrowded prison system are not merely problems that must be dealt with. They are failing band-aids over a gaping gunshot wounds in our society. If we want to stop executions, we shouldn’t be picketing at the prisons. We should be picketing at the damn legislature to come up with a viable social plan that will help our young people steer clear of such a path. We should picket ourselves for not prioritizing spending the time with our young people to teach them right, wrong and personal responsibility.

I don’t have all the answers, I wish I did. But with the way the system works with it’s long delays, I think it time to stop attacking a single issue in the prison system and start asking why are we making so many criminals? Maybe we should try giving each other our rightful due, our justice, before we break the law.

In The Meantime...

I have a reservation. My dog has a reservation. My cats have a reservation. My stuff has a reservation and my car has a reservation. I won’t be really able to get excited about this move until all the work is done and things are truly set in motion…but I’m getting there. :)