Posts from — October 2004

This weblog is now hosted at www.nohomepress.com. Follow the ‘Blog’ Link. Link is now www.nohomerpress.com/salient - ed.

Link is now www.nohomerpress.org/salient - ed.

The New York Times ran an article by Ron Suskind about President Bush’s faith. A couple of good commentaries (of the many), from warblogging and Greed & Arrogance

I watched Bush explain his faith during the debates with some curiousity, as I stopped drinking a year before Bush did. And, while Billy Graham did not attend to me personally, my sobriety has been based on something spiritual, that could be labeled ‘faith’ … and this is at the heart of sobriety for most of those I know in A.A.

Like most of us talking about something personal, and perhaps hard to express, I came away thinking that he sounded about like anyone else who might be pressed on the matter. You know, stuff about looking for guidance, innocuous quotes from aids: “his faith helps him in his service to people”

But this did not quite jibe with the stronger message, the black-and-white talk of evil, of ‘crusade’. Of the absolute certainty embodied in this endless repetition of ‘resolve’, the messianic tone of his speach. Bush is reported to have said “I trust God speaks through me”. Very unsettling.

Reading the article was scarey.
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Student Assessment results for vermont students were recently released (report here), and with several years worth of data, we can start to look at trends. They look good. As education Commisioner Richard Cates said in an inteview with Vermont Public Radio that he is generally pleased with the results.

VPR reports students are scoring higher in virtually every category at each grade level.

Despite the good news, there is a disturbing trend in the data.

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And breaking the promise not to fill the web with all those self-referential, self-absorbed notes detailing inane obsessive tinkering with geek stuff

Well, let’s see how this thing drives

November is National Novel Writing Month.

Somehow the timing is impeccable. Late fall is when I usually seem to wind up taking stock, gathering in, hunkering down. Introspective time, images of the days of summer, of the past year go gathering up ghostlike and swirl around like the leaves coming down. Some blow away, and some, sodden with the fall drizzle, take on some mass and stay, mashed by boots and tires, layering down to the soil.

I have been reaching out, grasping at some of these ghosts - I do anyways, to see where the year’s been, how it fitted, what kind of layer it added to my life. Now, I hope some of these ghosts will stick around and make themselves at home in this year’s novel.

Reread what I wrote last year - didn’t ‘finish’ - and was delighted at how good it was, having set it aside 30 November last, expecting sheer gibberish when I picked it up last night. While nowhere near anything I’d publish, being a draft that needs heavy edits (as well as completion), I did find a good line or two, and found myself glad to run into the characters again, as friends I’d not seen in a while.

Also, left me wondering how the hell I’m going to pull that off again. I liked those guys, I want to find out more about them. The challenge this year is going to be in finding another crew I want to spend a month with, following them around, pen in hand, curiously watching and writing down what they do.