Busy, busy bee...

I haven't had a lot of time to blog lately...these past two weeks, I've applied to grad school, applied to paramedics school, gotten a job, gotten two sewing commissions, and taken the GRE. O.o The last I did this morning...I'm just glad it's over. It actually wasn't as bad as I had thought...and I guess I did pretty well on it. I don't know how my scores compare to other UD hopefuls, but...I think I can hold my own. ;)

I fenced this evening...well, I didn't actually bout, but I got a good workout with just the footwork. My right leg felt like a lump of lead about halfway through. =/ I seriously need to do some cross-training, or I'm going to end up with a huge right thigh and puny left thigh, and a huge left calf. Very strange looking, that is. *boggles* I've been wanting to take up Irish dance for the longest time...unfortunately, there's always that gaping hole in pocket staring back at me. And with grad school and/or paramedic school looming on my horizon, I don't know how much else I can afford. *sigh*

Terri Schiavo has passed away. Requiescat in pace. Her so-called husband would not even permit her parents to spend those precious last moments with her. The cruelty and inhumanity of the whole event sickens me. One of my professors once said, and oh how true it is, that when men lose their humanity, they do not become as animals, they become as demons. Animals know no such perversity, no such heartless and cognizant cruelty.

Our society is going mad...

A 17 year old boy shoots up his school and kills himself. A teacher is accused of sexual relations with a student. A sexual predator was not pinned down and prevented from raping and murdering a child. Some 6 million illegal immigrants traipse into our country, and nothing is done because the liberal media would frown on any action taken. A woman is slowly and tortuously starved to death, while Scott Peterson gets his share of hearings and Michael Jackson's contempt for the court is overlooked.

We are going mad. How is it that a judge can honestly say he is upholding the law, when upholding the strict letter of the law means shedding innocent blood? Is the law, which is enacted to the defense of innocent life, to be preferred over preserving that life? The law is made to serve the citizens of this country, not the other way around. Every time I hear this inane argument that Terri ought to die because it's the legal thing to do, I wonder what the Founding Fathers would have said. What horror, what disgust, would they have felt! They might even have said, this is the very sort of tyrannical "rule of law" we wished to overthrow. Are we to sacrifice innocent life on the altar of the law, spill innocent blood in the name of justice? How can that be justified? It is utter chaos.

The purpose of law is to provide justice. What justice is there in the barbaric torture of someone too helpless to defend themselves? The purpose of the law is to be that defender for those who cannot defend themselves. Is it suddenly permissible to withhold a bottle from an infant, because the baby would die without it anyway? Depriving a dog of water is criminal, and yet the judges and lawyers sniff peremptorily and declare they can do nothing on behalf of a human life, because the action is "in accordance with the law." If it cannot protect even these innocent ones, then it is no law at all.

The Schindlers' Wish

There are elements of our society that are positively diabolic. It is absolutely beyond me how people can unflinchingly proclaim the right to life for the Scott Petersons and the Saddam Husseins of this world, terrorists, our military enemies and even the latest fashionable endangered beetle, and in the same breath condemn to torture and execution the most innocent and helpless of this country's citizens -- our elderly, our unborn, our disabled. Yet how often have we seen this very thing? The guilty walk, and the innocent perish. Andrea Yates is given life in prison, and Terri Schiavo is condemned to death. We have become a diseased society, infatuated with death...but only the death of the innocent.

If we start down this road, where do we draw the line? If we pronounce Terri Schiavo's life not worth living, then how many more lives can we similarly pronounce against? At what point would we say mental retardation, for example, or Alzheimer's, renders a person more deserving of the right to die than the right to life? When has nourishment ever been considered an extraordinary means to preserving life? If it is, then is intubation, having a person or a machine breathe for a person? To put it more bluntly, when do these disabilities make us too unwilling to give them the care and support that we are obliged to give them, and that they, as human beings, are deserving of? When do these disabilities transform us from men, who ought to defend them, into demons, who wish only to destroy?

"Oh," say Michael Schiavo and his lackeys with transparent devotion, "we only want her to die peacefully and with dignity." And his lawyer calls the desperate subpoena attempt thuggery! There is as much peace and dignity to the execution they have chosen and administered to her -- the slow, tortuous death of starvation -- as there was to the execution of the most innocent and meek Man of our history -- the ignominious, racking death of the Cross. What peace? What dignity? And Terri remains mute before her executioners, a lamb for the holocaust to our pride and inhumanity.

When does it end? Will we stand aside and watch Terri Schiavo fade slowly through agonizing pangs of hunger and thirst, only to die at last to the triumphant smirk of her enemies...one of whom ought to have been her staunchest defender? Will we read in the news one day that she has succumbed to death at last, and wag our heads and say ruefully, "Oh, how terrible," and then go on with our lives? Can we do anything to fulfill the Schindlers' wish to save the life of their daughter, in spite of the wish of her husband to murder her in one of the most inhumane and barbaric ways? How long can we say without blushing for shame that we are indeed a land of liberty, a safehaven, a land that honors human rights?

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming
shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me,"
And I shall kill them for you.

Searching for the Ivory Tower

For some inexplicable reason, I've been on a bit of a Neverending Story kick lately. I think it started when I got it into my head to look for the theme song...but what inspired that I don't know. (In case you were wondering, I found it...on iTunes. I also found a funky techno version that I couldn't resist buying :P). But it got me thinking about the book, and the movie (not the rather pathetic sequels -- the first was always a masterpiece to me)...when I was little, not only did I have the inevitable neverending crush on Atreyu, I wanted to be the Childlike Empress. I wanted to be her in the worst way. I wanted to live in the Ivory Tower -- I admit with absolutely no shame that the scene when the Ivory Tower appears, as Falkor and Atreyu fly through the shattered remnants of Fantasia, still brings tears to my eyes. I'm not entirely sure why, but I still get that old desire to see the Ivory Tower. In my childhood it was the most breathtakingly beautiful structure imaginable.

So as I was thinking about my childish flights of fantasy (no pun intended), and I realized that maybe I should have been listening to those inclinations all along. After all, what is the Ivory Tower? It has three meanings that I know well -- it represents academia and the imagination, and is also a common title of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Tower of Ivory, for Mary's common connection with Wisdom). And what is it that gives me greater delight to this day than academia and the exercise of the imagination? Who has been my strength and inspiration, my succour and my protectress but Our Lady? It is no childish thing to desire to dwell still in the Ivory Tower.

But thinking of the Ivory Tower as academia, it would certainly have saved me a lot of heartache lately if I had paid attention to that desire, had considered it in its deeper meaning. But, you might ask, did my seven year old mind understand this symbolism? To which I might reply, does it really matter? Some part of me did grasp that the Ivory Tower meant something, and meant something important. And whatever that was, it was desirable. I've always been captivated with the life of the mind, with the exercise of imagination...and in that way I've always felt a connection to Bastien: rather a misfit, curious, an avid reader, isolated.

What does all this mean, though? It means the Ivory Tower still exists. And Fantastica does exist. And to dwell in the Ivory Tower means also dwelling in Fantastica...and dwelling in Fantastica means living in the shadow (or the light?) of the tower. It can be reached, and it is no shameful thing to remain there.

On the theme of beginnings...

It's a lovely spring day today...one of those days when the sky is a brilliant azure, framing in vibrant contrast the delicate new green of the budding trees. It's cool out this morning -- the sun is warm, but there is just enough of a nip in the breeze to remind you to wear your jacket. In a few hours the nip will be gone, but the breeze will stay mild and invite you to open every window in the house. It's the kind of day when you'd love to pack a little picnic in your saddlebags, take a peaceful ride out to a lake, and just sit a while. The kind of day when you want to just be.

The daffodils are almost gone, but the jasmine and honey locusts and Bradford pears are blossoming. Some fortunate soul down the road has tulips, and another has some delightful crocuses. Within a few weeks our irises and freesia should bloom, and the plum tree looks ready to flower. It's one of my favorite times of year. Why does it always seem, though, that no sooner has a new season really begun when I start anticipating one or two seasons ahead? It's usually two -- and now, I guess because Spring hasn't really begun yet, I'm looking forward to summer.

I never imagined Texas could be beautiful in the summer...I thought everything had to just wither and die in a sullen brown shroud. But the crepe myrtles and oleander and climbing roses are in full bloom, and the trees have that mature, dark-green hue -- gorgeous. Of course, my favorite of all is when the sky is slate grey but for a few breaks in the cloud, and the trunks of the trees look black against that vibrant green. And the air has that sultry, heavy feel -- you can almost feel it pulsing with the energy of the storm that's approaching. The cicadas are muted and there's absolutely no wind...until the front hits. There's nothing that can compare to a thunderstorm in a Texas summer.

Texas light show

New Beginnings...

Well, I don't really think I can call this "new" beginnings, since I'm not beginning anything...anew. *ponders* And it's probably a bit presumptuous of me to even try doing a blog, since I can hardly keep my website updated. But we'll see.

I just returned from a trip to Firenze, Italia. Of course, everyone in our group came down with the flu -- luckily I got mine after I got home. But it was still an incredible trip, and I hope to post some pictures from our expeditions.

And for starters, here's one!


The bell tower on the campo in Siena.