I've just returned from Cape Cod. It's one of my favorite American places. It's among the ones I'll miss and have to come back to visit. It's ironic that planning to move abroad is such a powerful prompt to heightened feelings about places I've loved so much in this country: the Cape, New Orleans, the Florida Keys, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Charleston, the Outer Banks, the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, and... and...

But Gary writes that in Siena province it's  "hot, dry and wonderful at the moment; they are cutting the wheat and the hills look like they have been combed and a beautiful straw colour."

posted by Joanna @ 7/24/2004 03:45:00 AM 3 comments  

I'm going to make a concerted effort to drag myself away from politics and back to musings on moving to the Val d'Orcia. My friend, Stephy, has been over there this week and she and Gary tell me that my day lilies are all in bloom. The weather is, however, shockingly hot. I don't think it's as bad as last summer - yet. I don't think anyone has died - yet. I am pleased to hear via the grapevine that my Brit friend in Umbria has put in his pool and it is rumored to be lovely. Hope he's still speaking to me in the summers to come.

Of course, one of the reasons for going to live in Europe is the opportunity it will afford me to radically change my environment every once in awhile. For example, it's going to be 28 to 32 degrees Celsius in the Val d'Orcia all this week. That's about 88 to 92 degrees Fahrenheit. But I could spend the coming five days in, let's say, Amsterdam, where 18 to 21 (65 to 69) is forecast. Take the train from Chiusi or fly from Firenze or drive (maybe not -it's a fourteen hour drive not including rest stops and who needs a car in Amsterdam?). Or if there's another one of those rare winters with a few brief snowstorms and I'm not up to skiing Monte Amiata which is right up the road, I might find myself visiting my friend Ester in Sicily if she'll have me. I do love Sicily!

Of course the more practical thing to do with a week away from the house will be to drive the two and a half hours to Orbetello on the Mediterranean coast and sign up for some serious intensive Italian language courses. There's a small school down there that's got a great reputation among Europeans. I can get my scuba certification down there, too. I really don't want to stray too far from my new home for the first few years.

posted by Joanna @ 7/06/2004 01:58:00 AM 1 comments  

Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain is proving to be an admirably independent, responsible and compassionate European leader on the world stage. He says 'no' to the White House and 'yes' to the needs of decimated countries like Afghanistan and Haiti. At the NATO conference in Istanbul last week, "calling terror one of the challenges of the 21st century, he said the battle should be prosecuted through greater cross-border collaboration among police and intelligence agencies, and not by military interventions. He said NATO members should be careful not to lose their 'democratic soul' in the war on terror and urged them to strengthen multilateralism."

[I hate that phrase 'war on terror' and wish journalists would drop it from their lexicon except when directly quoting someone.]

Solving the problem of terrorism is going to take a helluva lot more than armaments and a will to destroy; among other things, it's going to take a serious commitment to a new politics of inclusion. We have to bring culturally and linguistically informed intelligence to bear on decisions about giving political support and financial aid to governments whose priorities are the universal education, healthcare and economic fairness that give peoples a will to create and to build.

For all the overwhelmingly generous individual westerner's response to crises, catastrophes and suffering in the world, there are too many episodes in the histories of our governmental and commercial institutions that expose cynical and expedient use of support and aid as no more than masked bribes proffered to greedy and corrupt ruling elites in return for concessions of profits from and power over voiceless peoples' resources and rights.

When did the West buy into the notion that capitalism is democracy? It's O.K. with me that business makes big profits. On the whole, that's a good thing. But business is not life.

So now I look forward to having Zapatero's democratically elected socialist government for a neighbor in Europe and I wish it every success.

That's my rant for the day.

posted by Joanna @ 7/03/2004 02:19:00 PM 5 comments  

After some thought and an overdose of reviews, commentary, interview and talk shows, I think the fact is that the film Fahrenheit 9/11 will have little or no effect on the votes of the citizens who do in fact usually vote. They'll have already made up their minds. The experiences of those who have been directly and profoundly impacted by events (loss of a job, death of a child in the military, and so on, or, conversely, significantly lower taxes, a sense of having one's deeply held moral views validated, and so on) will have already influenced votes well before the film's release. But given the fact that the film is sold out day after day, there's another factor in the mix now. The number of attendees at my little neighborhood theatre in just this first week most assuredly far exceeded the number of voters who turned up at the polling place on any given presidential election day in the past few decades. I would submit that a huge percentage of these movie goers have yet to get into the habit of voting and that registering to vote has never been on many of their 'to do' lists. Assiduous eavesdropping at theatre exits suggests that this may be the one thing that this film may change and may help to make a difference. Only time will tell.

posted by Joanna @ 7/03/2004 01:25:00 AM 0 comments  

We left for the movies.
We got in line for the movie.
Everyone filed in and filled every seat and watched it.
Later we had a lot of different reactions.
I went in with one other person and came out with a community of neighbors.
A lot of us bonded with fellow audience members upon leaving the theatre and made vows to get out the vote. Then everyone went home.

All in all, pretty cool!

But I have to say that I haven't yet separated out the publicity, good and bad, from the film itself and I really want to go see it again. How about you?

posted by Joanna @ 7/01/2004 11:43:00 PM 0 comments