Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 112

Good News in Latin America

A nice post from Common Dreams:

There's a game I've been playing recently. Any time I read the news and get depressed about the parlous state of our world, I type "Bolivia" into Google news and wait for the results. It's really all you need to brighten up your day.

In the last month things such as this have popped up: Bolivian women spearhead Morales revolution, which describes the decision by Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, to stock half his new cabinet with women, nearly half of them...

A Grey Day...

I am listening to Diane Krall on the Bose CD player.

The Mammoths of the Great Plains chapbook contains an updated version of my 2004 guest of honor speech at Wiscon, "Writing Science Fiction During the Third World War."

The world keeps changing so fast that I feel the need to update the essay almost weekly, certainly monthly. But the book is pretty close to going to press. So I stopped making changes.

Maybe I need to update the essay here.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the American governme...

On the Plus Side

I have finished going over the manuscript of Mammoths of the Great Plains, the chapbook that is being published by PM Press.

Now I am moving on the final, typeset version of Tomb of Fathers, the novel that being published by Aqueduct Press.

Maybe I really, really need to come to terms with the fact that I'm not likely to get an accounting job in this economy. But I can sell science fiction.

Still Looking for Work

I had two interviews last week. Did not get the job I wanted. Have not heard from the job I don't want. However, neither job asked for my references, which is a danger sign.

Other than that ongoing story, I went to the opera yesterday with my friends Ruth and Terry.. It was La Boheme by Puccini, a good production, but it didn't touch me the way La Boheme usually does. I have no idea why.

After the opera, we went out for Japanese food, which was tasty.

Zoo

I went to the Minnesota Zoo today with a friend and her 6-year-old son. Very nice. I think my favorite part was riding the monorail over the outside exhibits, all northern animals comfortable with snow and cold. It was crisp weather -- a high of 18 -- and the sky was absolutely clear. The monorail glided very slowly over grizzly bears, bison, wolves, musk oxen, Siberian tigers, takins, Przewalski's horses, caribou...

Very nice.

Sunlight

The last post was not cheerful. I will end with a cheerful post. My apartment is clean, due to work done yesterday. Sunlight is coming in, shining on the yellow flowers in a handmade glass vase.

Health Care

Patrick was reading Tim Pawlenty's new budget this morning. If it passes, he will not be able to get Minnesota Care, because he makes too much. The income cut off will be $8,000 a year instead of $26,000 as it is now. Pawlenty also wants to get rid of General Assistance, which is (I think) $203 month. This will leave destitute people with $10 a month in food stamps. That will be their entire income. They currently get General Assistance medical care. If T-Paw prevails, they will not get any, ...

Sunday Morning

It's quarter to eleven in the morning local time. I am listening to the MPR classical station and getting ready to take a shower.

I was thinking last night about the Bruce Springsteen concert before the Inauguration of the current president, when Springsteen and Pete Seegar sang together -- Seegar being, of course, the guy who has held true to his left politics through a long life, and who was red-hunted in the 1950s.

Anyway, I started to wonder if Obama was like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Time...

Health Care

Patrick had pneumonia in December and still has an ugly, hacking cough. He hasn't gone to a doctor because he doesn't have health insurance at the moment. He will be starting on Minnesota Care, the state plan, in March and will go to a doctor then. I spent one evening writing his obituary in my mind. But we are only a week from March, and the cough isn't getting worse, so I think he is going to make it.

Snowfall

I haven't posted for three weeks.

Patrick and I went east to visit relatives -- not for three weeks, for less than a week. We can both job search on the Internet, and apply for jobs by email. But we didn't want to gone for any period, in case we got a call for an interview.

The temp at my brother's place -- in Upper New York State -- was around freezing. There was fog, snow and rain. Not good traveling weather, so our plan to putter around New England went by the side. However, we did manage ...