Sherry Chandler

Links

First the heartbreaking: Dave Bonta on white-nose syndrome that is killing off our bats.

then the serious: David Ford’s interview of Helen Losse.

then the amazingly and amusingly techno: Quineau sonnets (via Matthew Lafferty)

And last, the just silly: Emergency Yodel Button (via Troy Teegarden)

Today, by the way, is the anniversary of the Gore vs. Bush election in 2000, the celebration of which puts us all in dire need of an emergency yodel button.

Friday morning musing

Well, well, well. Congratulations to Barack Obama for having won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. In the last eight years, Peace Prizes have gone to Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and now Barack Obama. I think perhaps the Nobel committee is sending the United States a message, inviting us to come home to what they see as our true role in the world.

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Herta Müller, a Romanian-born German novelist with whose work I am not familiar.

Coming down to earth and closer to home, I had a big time at the Stars with Accents reading last night. Katerina Stoykova-Klemerer and James Brown put together a great set of readers with a wide variety of styles and genres from a great series of shows.

Accents, by the way, made the top three local radio shows in Ace Magazine‘s annual Best of Lex ratings. Not bad for a newcomer who interviews poets!

And speaking of interviewed poets, I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend and fellow Green River Writers poet Sheri Wright, who in her September 25 interview on Accents chose my Dance the Black-Eyed Girl as the notable book of the week. She read my poem “Toxicodendron radicans.”

Sheri and Sonja DeVries were partnered for a great interview. You can listen to the podcast of that show and most of the others at this link. Sheri has a couple of notable books out herself, including one that gets my vote for best title, Contains Scenes of Indigenous Nudity. Her discussion of the origins of that title and her musings on why “indigenous” nudity is okay while other nudity is considered pornographic are worth a listen, especially her reading of the poem “Contains Scenes of Indigenous Nudity, the Upper Half.”

You can buy Sheri’s books at Carmichael’‘s in Louisville.

By the way, WRFL was taping last night’s readings and I think highlights will be played on future broadcasts of Accents.

The Media and Misogyny

Too little, too late, on CNN Howard Kurtz examines the question with a panel of (gasp!) women journalists. He predicts a backlash. Ya think?:

Watch at YouTube

Link via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

I do not have cable tv, let alone HBO, so I did not watch Recount, but Jane Smiley did and she came to conclusion that Al Gore was right to concede because, in part, it allowed the Republicans to show themselves:

Winning to them trumped every other consideration. It is also evident that they learned from their “victory” in Florida that bullying was the way to go, and so they attempted to use the same strategy and tactics in Iraq. The last eight years show that ethics, law, and human decency meant nothing to these Republicans. And their current pleasure in the depiction of their own rottenness shows that they have learned nothing.

I would like to be a fly on the wall in the room where John McCain is watching Recount. In the course of the next few months, knowing that bullying, cheating, and subverting the election might or might not work, he will have to make a choice. He can run an honorable campaign and lose or a dishonorable campaign that shames him. Does he watch Recount and see Warren Christopher as a “wimp” and James Baker as “tough”? Or does he watch Recount and feel the humiliation that every Republican should feel? He is the carrier of the Bush poison now. The sooner he recognizes it, the better off the nation will be.

My thought? Maybe the Democrats should examine their own house.

Link courtesy of Avedon.

Aside: Kurtz can’t resist a bit of blame the victim in his Washington Post venue:

Somewhere in Hillary’s inevitability phase, the trailblazing nature of her effort got lost. She became the establishment candidate, the return-to-the-’90s candidate, and the wow factor–which has always surrounded Obama–simply faded.

Simply faded? How about was stomped on and crushed and still wouldn’t die? See Avedon below.

Update: Over at Suburban Guerilla, zuzu asks Obama supporters how they’re going to reach out to disgruntled Clinton supporters in the event that Obama is the nominee. Interesting lot of replies. Go read. (Short version: they got nothin’)

Hope, Al Gore style

This video is widely available throughout the intertubes. I provided a link to one spot myself earlier. But iit’s important so I thought I would post it too:

I love the black shirt.

Thanks to Have Coffee, Will Write for help with the code. Jeff has a great new look, so if you haven’t been over there for a while you should give him a visit. He’s doing great work on Myanmar and Darfur and he’s fighting the good fight against Wal-Mart.

Green pathways out of poverty. Via

Cranky Environmentalists