spooorts!

i used to be a big baseball fan.

after a 45 minute yellow bus ride through north ukiah's finest neighborhoods (including, but not limited to, empire gardens, the pinoleville res, and north state street) my brother and i would get off at the lucky angler, a mom & pop convenience store near the muddy shores of lake mendocino. chet and laura would sell us a pack of baseball cards, and before climbing up the hill through the horse pasture, luke and i would stop off at a log hidden from the road by an overgrowth of bushes. we'd tenderly free our cards from their wax paper packets, and hope for a don mattingly or nolan ryan card.

i spent a few hot summer days listening to a giants game on knbr. i even spent a few of the afternoons at candlestick, including game 5 of the '89 NLCS when the giants clinched the pennant against the forlorn cubs

now i could give a shit about sports, unlike, surprisingly, friends of mine who are hecka into sports these days. i haven't sworn off the whole endeavour; i'll still watch a game every once and while. i am a total fairweather giants fan, but it's hard not to be when one lives in san francisco.

i haven't so much been into sports since high school. i think the baseball strike in 1994 had something to do with it. or maybe it was exposing my tender mind to a world outside of the sleepy ukiah valley walls.

i got caught up in this year's ALCS and i actually watched about 30 innings of the world series. i am baffled at how dirty and baggy and hip hop the red sox of current are. i felt like i was watching the '93 phillies or something. the red sox of pete-fan days were clean cut and sometimes sported red moustaches. the relaxed curls, untucked shirts and ruggish stubble were pretty shocking to me.

almost with a whisper, the red sox finally broke the curse, yielding the lamest, boring-est world series in recent history. (although one could argue winning 8 straight post season games is an exciting feat.) last night i was pretty excited during the 8th and 9th innnings, mostly because i was convinced they would choke, but that prolly has something to do with various giants games i've seen in recent history. the four game roll over by the cardinals doesn't seem to do justice to the heartbreak of guys like wade boggs, roger clemens, oil can boyd or even bill effing buckner.

i don't expect to ever care about the game the way i did when i was a kid, but i don't mind remembering warm sunshiney afternoons with AM radios and rookie cards and wiffle ball bats.

bookworm

so i've discussed my friend's material. here are a few more sites with which i pass the time:

Baghdad Burning is written by a 24 year old woman living in occupied iraq. she is university educated with a computer science degree; a former network administrator/database programmer. her account of daily life since our invasion is at the same time compelling and heartbreaking, and completely contrary to the bush administration's version of the occupation. here's a quote from a recent, september 2004 post:

You know things are really going downhill in Iraq, when the Bush speech-writers have to recycle his old speeches. Listening to him yesterday, one might think he was simply copying and pasting bits and pieces from the older stuff. My favorite part was when he claimed, "Electricity has been restored above pre-war levels..." Even E. had to laugh at that one.

A few days ago, most of Baghdad was in the dark for over 24 hours and lately, on our better days, we get about 12 hours of electricity. Bush got it wrong (or Allawi explained it to incorrectly)- the electricity is drastically less than pre-war levels, but the electricity BILL is way above pre-war levels. Congratulations Iraqis on THAT!! Our electricity bill was painful last month. Before the war, Iraqis might pay an average of around 5,000 Iraqi Dinars a month for electricity (the equivalent back then of $2.50) - summer or winter. Now, it's quite common to get bills above 70,000 Iraqi Dinars... for half-time electricity.

i was about to start my freshman year in high school when saddam hussein invaded kuwait in august 1990. let's not forget that life for the average iraqi was at least functional under saddam hussein...they had one of the world's finest health care systems, an extensive university system with a literate, well educated "middle class," a well developed infrastructure. most people in iraq didn't live in tents in the desert.

the sanctions against the iraqi government didn't hurt saddam hussein, they hurt common people. they kept babies from getting antibiotics. they made bridges fall into disrepair. they caused electrical brown-outs.

i guess the idea was the people would get so fed up the squalor the sanctions subjected them to, they would rise up and depose hussien themselves. after president bush sold out on the kurds right after the Gulf War, i can only guess that the iraqi people had little faith that we would support them if they rose up against saddam. and they were too marginalized by the sanctions to get past daily survival.

i perceive a general lack of regard (or is it a lack of knowledge?) for the people, history and culture of iraq. iraq is the birthplace of western civilization. some of humanity's greatest treasures and artifacts are there. iraq was a modern society with popular culture, christmas celebrations, the internet, etc. what is happening in iraq is a tragedy, and reading riverbend's blog is an up close look into the daily life of an iraqi, while offering the other side of history.

english national shaun atwood got popped on what he claims to be trumped up drug and financial fraud charges, and was subsequently sentenced to nine years in arizona state prison. he spent several months holding the infamous maricopa county jail awaiting a cell in the big house. shaun's descriptions of county jail, and now prison life are intriguing and disturbing. his posts about the county jail in particular have led to efforts to improve the shameful conditions there.

he writes his posts by hand, and his mother transcribes them into his blog. he's an interesting character, a former stock broker who practices yoga and vegetarianism in his cell, when he's not reading books from the prison library.

avid reader

i haven't written for a while, but i have been coasting through my days at work, reading what ever website suits my fancy at that particular moment. on a given day i read my friend's sites first, so i'll start with that.

phil is one of my oldest friends. last june, he relocated to new york city to earn a masters degree by teaching spanish in the public school system. new york city has a massive deficit of qualified teachers, and it's been 10 years since phil has been in any sort of grade school classroom. although hardly a substitute for the flesh and blood version, phil has been keeping in touch with daily emails and frequent posts to his weblog, rocky hands. phil has an undeniable wit and a storyteller's insight that makes his words a compelling read. he's never taught before and if i were some shifty magazine editor i would write something like "read one man's account of life in the trenches of new york's public school system."

tari is my sweetheart. like her tender boyfriend, she's had a tough time making a regular habit of writing, but when she does i really enjoy it because so much of her voice comes through in her writing. she's a scientist at a struggling bay area biotech, so she's got a fair amount of free time on her hands while her company figures out how they are going to move forward. read it, and maybe post some comments or send her an email.

my brother luke lives in a cabin in the redwoods on the mendocino coast, with his sweetheart. he's working hard to get his music career of the ground. he's quite talented, and you can hear his music on the website. he incorporates sound samples with guitar and cello into his self produced recordings, and his lyrics are as finely crafted as his recordings. his kittens are so cute, after i look at their pictures on his website, i want to smash my skull in with a hammer.

i have six of them

i have gmail accounts available if anyone
.wants one
.is actually reading this

if you would likey likey, email pgeniella at gmail.com. thank you.