The Real Daisy

... was my grandmother. I have no idea when or where this photo was taken, but it was probably in Pittsburgh.

Her eyes were so black, you couldn't even see the pupils. Her hair was likewise very black, naturally curly and silky.

My grandmother was Melungeon, which I have always intended to blog about, but there is so little known about them, I don't know exactly what to write. Suffice to say, they were very WEIRD backwoods people with all kinds of BIZARRE traditions you never heard of. (I later understood this is why my family was so odd and never fit in with the other nice, Midwestern families on the block.) Her youngest brother (who never left the backwoods) had an indescribable, hard-to-place accent that was nearly indecipherable, as did both of her parents. It went beyond mere Appalachian accents, and it was nice to finally learn the reason why.

When the Melungeons were asked questions by census takers, they told them all kinds of creative stories, claiming to be Portuguese, Arabs, Jews, and whatever else they thought the census-taker wanted to hear. That's why nobody knew for sure what race/ethnicity they were, and historians are still arguing over it. Much has finally been sorted out through DNA: Melungeons were "tri-racial isolates" -- Native American indigenous people (and refugees from colonial encroachment) and free African-Americans, intermarried with white colonists who decided to go off and live in the wilderness for whatever reasons. This accounts for their deep secrecy and suspicion of strangers (and especially the government).

When white colonists eventually migrated to the Cumberland Gap and the New River (where my grandmother was born), they found these strange folks already living there.

I am interested in learning more, as it becomes known. In studying the Melungeons, it is fascinating to note how some people don't mind being one of the first Americans, but twist themselves in knots to deny the African ancestors. My grandmother told me that as a child, she always knew there were Africans in her family tree... but that is not the rude terminology she used, which I will not repeat here. (What is interesting is that she found this amusing and never denied it. In all honesty, she seemed to find the idea of being related to Cherokee more disturbing.) When people snootily remarked that she looked like Lena Horne, she was obviously too thrilled to get mad about the racial thing.

Second photo is of my grandmother and my mother, Betty, on the right. I estimate their ages to be 37 and 21, respectively. (1955 - Parkersburg, WV)

















Third photo is my mother and me, ages 38 and 15. (1973 - Columbus, OH)
Yes, before you ask, I think that IS real fur. She thought fake fur was low class.

I miss them a lot during this time of year.

And now, your turn. Who do you miss?

Confederate Memorial Day

CSA Battle Flag image from The Palmetto Scoop.



Today is officially Confederate Memorial Day. This day in history marks the capture of Jefferson Davis. From the Greenville News:

COLUMBIA — All state agencies, 10 counties and one school district in South Carolina are observing Confederate Memorial Day.

The state holiday is officially May 10, but employees get Monday off.

The holiday marks the death of Confederate commander Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

South Carolina is among several Southern states that designate a state holiday to honor Confederate soldiers, although they do so on different days. Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi observed Confederate Memorial Day on April 27th. Texas honors Gen. Robert E. Lee's birthday, Jan. 19, as Confederate Heroes Day.

May 10 was renewed as an official holiday in South Carolina in 2000 as part of a compromise that also made Martin Luther King Day a permanent holiday.

I have my issues with "Confederate Memorial Day" and its questionable political genesis, but then again, I figure I can use this day any way I like.

I'd like to take this day to honor one of my ancestors, a CSA Army deserter named (by most accounts) Thomas Hatcher. A native of Virginia, he deserted the Confederate army at about the Civil War's mid-point, and swam across the Ohio River, eventually taking up residence in Pittsburgh. He was variously known as TA Hatcher and TJ Hatcher, as well as several other names; I don't know anything else about him, except that he appeared to stay on the move, even after the war's end.

One might presume that deserting the CSA was some risky business, and that is why he moved around a lot and changed his name. Was he proud or ashamed? What made him do it? Whatever his reasons, I am extremely proud of him. This decision cost him his family and his former life. He stayed in the north, and from all I have been able to discern, never went back to the south.

As I have written here before, I don't know if he was sick, injured or just fed up and disgusted. I like to think it was the latter, and he had seen enough. I trace a direct line from great-great-great grandfather Hatcher to my own anti-war sentiments that have sustained me throughout a lifetime. I enjoy believing that pacifist convictions are encoded in my DNA.

On this day, I honor you, Thomas Hatcher, for having the courage to lay down your arms and beat swords into plowshares. I am lighting a candle to honor your great decision not to continue fighting in a racist war.

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog, soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

(Bob Dylan, Chimes of Freedom)

Christian 'ex-lesbian' faces contempt charges for refusing visitation to ex-lover

At left: Cousin Bethie's yard fountain. (Probably some pagan goddess I don't know the name of.)

~*~



Warning, the links below are to a so-called "pro-life" web site.

I originally found this on a Catholic board:

Mother to Face Contempt Charges for Refusing Visitation to Former Lesbian Lover

Christian ex-lesbian could face total loss of custody or jail time for defying visitation order
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

October 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Lisa Miller, a former lesbian who rejected the homosexual lifestyle and returned to her belief in Christ, will face contempt of court charges today for refusing to give unsupervised visitation of her daughter to her former lesbian partner.

Miller, 40, told LifeSiteNews in a extensive recent interview that her six year old daughter, Isabella, has said that she would like to kill herself following an unsupervised visit, and has complained of being forced to bathe naked with 44-year-old Janet Jenkins, according to Miller (see interview here) Her Vermont attorney, Steven Crampton, reportedly plans to present sworn testimony of evidence of abuse during today’s hearing.

Vermont courts have awarded liberal visitation rights to Jenkins, despite the fact that she has no biological nor adoptive relationship with Isabella. Lisa Miller conceived Isabella through artificial insemination and says that Jenkins took little interest in the conception and pregnancy. The two were joined in a “civil union” under Vermont law.

If Miller is found in contempt of court, she could be imprisoned on the spot, and could face a steep fine. The judge could also choose to transfer full custody to Jenkins. Miller has already paid a $10,000 fine for refusing further visitation to Jenkins.

According to Miller’s attorney in Virginia, Rena Lindevaldsen, Vermont law makes no provisions for parental status in the case of a spouse conceiving by artificial insemination, even in marriages and other unions between heterosexuals. However, a Vermont judge decided to fill the vacuum by declaring that parental rights were automatically conferred.

The judge “said there was no law and he created law to decide who is a parent ... he said the legislature hasn’t passed a law, I don’t know what to do, so he created a new law and applied it to this child who had been born two years earlier,” Lindevaldsen told LifeSiteNews.

Although Virginia law clearly rejects any and all rights and claims stemming from homosexual “marriage” and “civil union” arrangements in other states, Virginia judges have repeatedly upheld the decisions of the Vermont courts.

The case has also been appealed to the Supreme Court twice, but the court has refused a hearing for Miller.

However, despite the enormous opposition she faces from the court systems of Vermont and Virginia, Miller says that she continues to trust God.

“I believe that God is in control and I believe that anything that is going to happen – He is going to allow it,” she told LifeSiteNews. "I don’t have any fear. I feel at peace that God is with me. He has protected me and Isabella for the last five years and I believe that He is going to continue to do that."

Well, silly me, I have a question, as usual.

How is this case "pro-life" and why is it being featured on a pro-life site? Is it somehow understood that "pro-life" is necessarily anti-gay? Why?

I'm glad you are all voting "pro-life" and for Obama, since you all want to end the murderous slaughter of the Iraq war ASAP, of course. Right?

And you want to end the death penalty, right? Glad to hear it!

(that usually brings them out of the woodwork)

Meanwhile, to keep this ABOMINATION (Biblical word used deliberately) from happening to another parent, let's all encourage our friends in California to VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 8, so that gay people's parental rights will be protected, despite what some confused fundie ex-partner might choose to do.

My heart just bleeds for Jenkins; she shouldn't have to deal with this nonsense.

The provocative and rather cutesy name of Miller's Facebook group is Only One Mommy.

LeRoi Moore 1961-2008

Left: LeRoi Moore, photo from A Choice of Weapons.

~*~

LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of the Dave Matthews Band, has died unexpectedly from complications of an all-terrain vehicle accident. He was 46.

He also co-wrote a song of cosmic truth, that I periodically meditate on, Too Much.



In Memoriam: LeRoi Moore

Moore and Matthews first teamed up in 1991 in Charlottesville, VA. After pulling together the rest of the band, they released the album Remember Two Things. Seven studio albums later, the Dave Matthews Band has become one of the most popular bands in America. Moore brought jazz and blues influences to the band's easygoing jam-rock sound: From the deep rumble on “Bartender” from the Lilywhite Sessions, to the high-pitched bounce of the tenor notes in “Stay,” Moore brought both life and a playful sensibility to his music.

Moore was one of the less vocal members of the group, preferring to eschew the spotlight. Back in 2001, Dave Matthews spoke with Entertainment Weekly music critic Chris Willman, and said of Moore, “He's a tortured soul, but man, when he plays, he plays the most pretty melodies in the world, instantly. And LeRoi plays melodies that are brand new that sound as if he's been playing them forever.”

The band announced Moore's passing at their show last night at L.A.'s Staples Center, with Matthews saying, “It’s easier to leave than to be left.”

Our deepest Dead Air condolences go out to the family and friends of LeRoi.

And like the song says--

I told God, I'm coming
To your country
I'm going to eat up your cities,
Your homes, you know
I've got a stomach full it's not
A chip on my shoulder
I've got this growl in my tummy
And I'm gonna stop it today

I eat too much
I drink too much
I want too much
Too much

Ohhhhhh, me too. But I am sure God respects the fact that we admit it, fight it, try to deal with it... and attempt to work with this fact any way we can. LeRoi brought the fact home, pointing the finger at himself and all of us, all while wailing on the sax.

Resquiat in pace.


More at the Dave Matthews Band website.

Odds and Sods - Sunday Matinee edition

Check out Neil Sinhababu's Six Reasons Why Clinton shouldn't be Obama's VP over at Cogitamus. Speaking personally, I thought a joint ticket was a pretty good idea until reading this. Hmm. (Great discussion, worth price of admission.)

Also: I need to calm down (formerly known as Vox Ex Machina) writes about Racism in the Voting Booth.

~*~

A Very Public Sociologist reports on the Gender, Law and Sexuality postgraduate symposium at Keele University (UK). Feminist researcher Wei Wei Cao's presentation was especially interesting:

Where bioethics are concerned feminism opposes legal obstacles placed in the way of women's access to (reproductive) medical services. But, Cao argued, there has been a tendency for feminism to place emphasis at different times on legal arguments, and at others ethical arguments, instead of a more coherent approach. This failure to combine them effectively can lead to the enshrining of progressive legal rights on paper, but in practice, serving to perpetuate the patriarchal structures they aimed to combat. For example, in Cao's native China, abortion law is very liberal. But far from enhancing women's reproductive rights, it has strengthened patriarchy's hold over women's fertility by "encouraging" the abortion of female foetuses, particularly in rural China. Taken with the one child policy this has resulted in there being somewhere in the region of 50-60 million more (mainly young) men than women.

And as we know, in the more liberal societies of the West, abortion is still taboo. Many women who undergo the procedure often have to deal with the difficulties of doing so in silence.

Therefore, Cao suggests that while the fight for reproductive autonomy remains a key feminist objective it needs to be more sensitive to women's experience.

~*~

As I have stated before, my favorite author and the greatest living genius of our age, JG Ballard, is very ill with late-stage cancer. BALLARDIAN offers us a Spring 2007 interview in an unnamed German scifi publication, titled “I really would not want to fuck George W. Bush!”: A Conversation with J. G. Ballard, conducted by Werner Fuchs and Sascha Mamczak:

Ballard: I’m very interested in social pathology, in what really drives us on in our everyday lives. My newest novel Kingdom Come raises the question of whether the consumer thinking of the present day might not at some point suddenly turn into fascism.

A very trenchant thesis.

Yes, but just take a look at what’s going on in these huge shopping malls. Evidently not much more than shopping is left for us. That and sport. That’s where we get our kicks, those are the new religions. I already believe that one of these days we could end up in a kind of leisure-time dictatorship.

But don’t events like the attacks of the 11th of September or the catastrophe in New Orleans remind people of the hard facts of reality?

I’m not so sure about that. I think it was difficult for many people to distinguish the picture of the collapsed World Trade Center from all the other images they know from Hollywood. It’s such a binary matter: real, unreal, real, unreal… And as for whether the current American administration finds itself brought down to reality or not, I very much doubt it. No, I think we live in dangerous times.

~*~

Left: A boy and his dog, outside the Greenville County Library yesterday.

From the Roanoke Times, comes another puppy mill conviction. And once again, no time will be served. (Why do they bother?)

This one is notable in that Carroll County (VA) animal rights activists intervened and alerted authorities:

Junior Horton, who operated Horton's Pups in Hillsville where more than 1,000 dogs were discovered in November by local authorities acting on a tip from the Virginia Partnership for Animal Welfare and Support, had been charged with 14 counts of animal cruelty, 25 counts of animal neglect and one count of failing to obtain a license tax for 125 unlicensed adult dogs.

700+ dogs were rescued. The Humane Society has called it the largest canine rescue operation in the USA.

Veterinarians working with the animal welfare advocates filed reports to the office of Carroll County Commonwealth's Attorney Gregory Goad. The charges accused Horton of depriving dogs of necessary food, drink, shelter or emergency veterinary treatment, and of failing to adequately house, feed, water, exercise or care for animals in his possession.

~*~

And finally, this just in--by way of Renegade Evolution. Pornographer Nina Hartley was hacked by some Islamic extremists. As reported by Ernest Greene on The Blog of Pro-Porn Activism (you've been duly warned as to content):

Nina.com was hacked by a couple of young guys in Turkey who characterize themselves as "Islamic cyber-warriors." They've hacked hundreds of other sites all over the world that they regard as suitable targets for their jihadist fury for whatever reasons and make no secret of their intention to go right on doing so. Indeed, for a couple of days after the fact, they were all over Turkish media trumpeting their great triumph at shutting down the site of the "Jew whore" Nina Hartley. And they got pretty far with that too, even making it onto the TV news back home. This will get them more views for their clumsy gangsta-rap vids on youtube (you can see their collection of laptops in the background as they bust their moves) and presumably sell more of the malware they peddle on their own site. Great heroes of the coming caliphate are these two twenty-nothings. May they be welcomed into paradise by those 72 virgins at the earliest possible date. Given the TNP's impatience with swaggering braggarts who like to stir up trouble, that date may come rather sooner than they expect.

But those of us over here are stuck with some troubling questions whatever fate may hold in store for these pathetic low-lifes. The unpleasant fact remains that the hate they feel for Nina and all she believes is shared in equal measure among right-wing Christian evangelicals, left-wing anti-porn feminists and their fellow Islamic fundamentalist fanatics all around the world. Even though these extremists all despise each other, they agree on something basic about human nature - their deep-seated distrust and dislike for it. Where they find common ground is in their abhorrence of personal freedom and individual liberty.

Indeed.

----------------
Listening to: The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
via FoxyTunes

Screamworthy!

Left: Canebrake rattler photo from Kingsnake.com.



Lesson: Don't leave luggage open on the porch!

Snake crawled in man's luggage in SC and bit him when he unpacked in VA.

The Associated Press • March 25, 2008

McLEAN, Va. -- A high school coach emptying his luggage after a team trip to South Carolina was bitten by a small rattlesnake that had somehow gotten into his bag, authorities said.

Andy Bacas in was stable condition at Inova Fairfax Hospital, fire officials said. He remained hospitalized Tuesday morning.

Bacas, a rowing coach at Yorktown High School in Arlington, told authorities he felt a sharp pain on his hand Monday when he reached into his luggage. He then saw the nearly foot-long snake and slammed the suitcase shut.

Fire and rescue workers took the suitcase outside, opened it and blasted the snake, identified as a juvenile canebrake rattler, with a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. The chemical essentially froze the animal to death.

"The guy who responded had seen (the fire extinguisher technique) done on TV," Arlington County Fire Department spokesman Ben Barksdale said.

Bacas' son, Peter, said the luggage had been left open on a porch during the trip to Summerton, S.C., which is about 75 miles northwest of Charleston. Barksdale said he had no information that the snake was deliberately put into the luggage.

Bob Myers, director of the American International Rattlesnake Museum in New Mexico, said it's conceivable that a snake would crawl into luggage seeking warmth or shelter.

The venom from a canebrake rattlesnake can be particularly harmful, but a young snake is not usually large enough to deliver enough to be lethal, Myers said. Adult canebrakes can grow to 6 feet.

"There's an old wives' tale that says a baby rattlesnake bite is worse than an adult bite, but that's just not true," Myers said.

Three or four people die each year from rattlesnake bites in the United States, out of perhaps 8,000 bites a year, Myers said.

(((screams)))
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Listening to: Bob Marley & the Wailers - Is This Love
via FoxyTunes