Mercury Rising 鳯女

Politics, life, and other things that matter

So Who Are These People, Anyway?

May 21, 2007:

This wasn’t really supposed to be a thread — WP puts it in automatically to show newbie WP bloggers what posting looks like — but since a few folks have posted in it recently, I’ll put up some stuff about us.

Phoenix Woman: That’s me. I live in Minnesota.  My e-mail address is womanphoenix AT yahoo DOT com.  I’ve been online since 1995 — a neophyte compared to most of my friends (one of whom got his first ArpaNet e-mail account in 1977). If I didn’t blog, I’d go nuts. I’m not a cat, but if I were, I’d be a fluffy orange tabby, kinda like these.

Charles Utwater II

He was raised in the desert Southwest, from whence he acquired his working knowledge of Mexican Spanish, Mexican culture, and Mexican politics. He’s not a cat either, but if he were one, he’d be a sleek, fastidious tuxedo cat — you know, like Socks.

Writings include:
2009. Whom the Gods Would Destroy, a five part series on the coup in Honduras. (Part 5 and links to earlier)
* partial translation of Juridical Analysis of the (Honduran) Coup, part 1 by Edmundo Orellana
* translation of Honduras, the Scapegoat Syndrome by Juan Almendares
And a number of substantive analytical articles from 2001ff in venues like American Politics, Online Journal, and Smirking Chimp, which someday I may get around to uploading, since link rot has claimed them.

MEC: She is also a human, or was last time I checked. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of current events, lives in Michigan, and serves as catstaff to two felines: Lady Lightfoot and Alexander the Great (but you can call him “Alex”). If she were a cat, she’d be a tortie or a calico, I reckon. [UPDATE:  MEC suggests that she is in fact an avatar of The One Black Cat.]
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Added, 9/17/11: Policy on posting, now moved here

24 Responses to “So Who Are These People, Anyway?”

  1. Woodchuk Wassall said

    Your Ozymandias piece was perfect. As age wears on I’m ever more aware of history rewrites. In 1974 I attended a largely Republican reception where Nixon was toasted and all present save me declared they would vote for him again in an instant. They have brain erasers I think.
    Cheers,Woodchuk

  2. dday said

    I have presented you with a “Thinking Blogger Award.” It’s well-deserved.

    Please read the post and the rules and tag five other bloggers with this honor.

  3. mizzo said

    Absolutely love the blog. We try to accomplish something similar on The Starting Five from a sports perspective

    Scoop Jackson: Vantage Point

    Here’s something posted today. I’ll definitely put you on the blog roll. Great links also.

  4. Adam Zero said

    Please consider linking to an anti-war protest music video by the Spicewood Seven of Austin, Texas. The award-winning video was directed by famed Italian post-neo-realist director Antonio Zapanini and shows the horror and insanity of the war from a grunt’s eye view.

    Yours,

    Adam Zero
    Phoebe Claire Publishing, LLC

  5. PW — Is Charles your cat?

  6. Bill said

    you also write at FDL? I enjoy your commentary, thanks for being here

  7. MEC said

    “If she were a cat, she’d be a tortie or a calico, I reckon.”

    Because torties and calicos are all crazy?

    I prefer to think I’d be the One Black Cat.

  8. Freckles Cassie: Meow!

  9. Charles, is this you?

  10. Charles said

    No, Cassie. That’s a second cousin on my mother’s side. :-)

  11. Congrats! I chose you for a Thinking Blogger award!

    Read here for more info: http://frecklescassie.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/thanks-for-the-award/

    Now I get to give it to 5 other blogs:

    thinkingblogger.jpg

    Thinking Blogger Award rules:

    1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
    2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
    3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

    Here are my choices:

    1. Etcetera at disembedded.wordpress.com .
    2. Mercury Rising at phoenixwoman.wordpress.com
    3. Millard Filmore’s Bathtub at timpanogos.wordpress.com
    4. Our Descent into Madness at ourdescent.wordpress.com
    5. Peace takes Courage at peacetakescourage.com/page-home.htm

  12. Charles said

    That’s very kind of you, Cassie! I’m not sure I’ve thought much recently, but I’ll see what we can do in terms of passing on this award.

  13. Dear Ms. P.W.
    Reading Yr. comments makes me, like Heller’s Chaplin, “Yearn for you,tradgically.”
    In that we’re neighbours you might paddle north to ‘boreal moonlight canoeing’ sometime for blueberry torte.

    In any event don’t dispair, Lord knows that there are plenty of ashes around to re-conjure a Pheonix, or a ThunderBird.

    As an Elder Anishinaabe Firemaster we have some skills in these matters.

    Enaways, Say Hey to Garrison and Al and drive with care, we hear rumours of bridge decay.

    Megwich, gavin

  14. pjburns said

    Thank you Phoenix for setting Carolina straight about the MacBeth satire. I was scratching my head thinking it was a joke, waiting for a punchline. I post all comments and refuse to get in a spat over opinions. I am glad someone explained the reference.

    http://www.thetruthburns.wordpress.com

  15. Not a problem, PJ.

  16. […] final helpful explanation of my tardiness suggested by my friend and fellow blogger, MEC […]

  17. Geekblog said

    Hello, would you exchange links with my blog Geekblog?
    thanks 1000! http://www.geekblog.it
    Claudia

  18. Joe Shansky said

    Hello,

    I’ve been reporting from Honduras, here is the latest..pls forward widely.

    gracias,
    Joe

    From Guantanamo to Honduras: Psychological Wars Then and Now

  19. Iqui Balam said

    Charles/Phoenix,

    I’ve trying to get in touch with you two to pass you info, but I haven’t been able to find out your emails.

    Could you send me a line at iqui@hablahonduras.com?

    In the meantime, you should know this, and spread the word as much as you can, maybe we can prevent this nauseous thing from happening:

    *******************************************

    MILITARY PLANS MASSACRE: CODEH

    By Habla Honduras

    Right at this moment Mr. Andres Pavon, head of the Committee for the
    Defense of Human Rights in Honduras, CODEH (‘Comité para la Defensa de los
    Derechos Humanos en Honduras, CODEH) is denouncing before national and
    international opinion the existence of a criminal military plan to dress
    up professional soldiers as members of a false ‘armed wing’ of the
    Resistance, whom next November 29 will carry on a military mass
    assassination against members of the Democratic Civic Union (‘Unión Cívica
    Democrática, or UCD, an extreme right-wing group that supports the Coup
    d’Etat and the dictatorial regime, having been named ‘Electoral
    Custodians’ for the upcoming elections), with the very specific goal of
    provoking violent repulsion on a national level and loss of support on an
    international level for the Resistance.

    According to Mr. Pavon, military officers loyal to the Honduran people
    have confidentially provided him with the information concerning the
    diabolic plan, after pointing out to him that such an intention is
    directed by dark forces inside the golpista camp that are in denial about
    accepting any responsibility at all about the barbaric rupture of
    constitutional order and the destruction of legal protections of Human
    Rights in the nation.

    This rehearsed mass assassination of supposed ‘regime supporters’ is
    basically aimed at creating a climate of retribution from members of the
    UCD and all the oligarchs who support the criminal regime against
    individual members of the Resistance, in the hopes that the oligarchy may
    proceed to expand the hiring of professional killers to assassinate
    Hondurans loyal to the Resistance movement.

    The final goal of this heinous mass crime would be to cry wolf upon the
    fraudulent electoral process that the dictatorial regime plans to hold on
    November 29, and declare it null and void in light of grotesque violence,
    so that the criminal regime can hold fast to power in a full blown
    military dictatorship in which the Resistance will be hunted and killed
    one by one.

    Mr. Pavon has been told that the Military Junta (the five generals who
    sent the commandos to violently remove President Zelaya from power) is
    feeling deeply nervous about what they perceive as two main problems:

    1. Politicians have been ‘leaving them alone’ for weeks now, and do not
    seem interested in any effort at all to spare the general and his bullies
    from blame.

    2. Most importantly, the general and his bullies have smelled (quite
    rightly) the inability of the new government that is to arise from the
    fraudulent electoral process to protect them fully from the consequences
    of their criminal actions on national and international levels. No
    government will in the end accept economic sanctions and diplomatic
    blackballing to protect five old farts from jail, and they darn well know
    it. So it is that Romeo Vasquez and Co. have calculated that the new
    president will not be able to protect them, even if he really wanted to,
    as he will be forced to use them as scapegoats before the International
    Criminal Court to calm the loud cries for justice that will surely arise
    as a popular demand at the beginning of next presidential term.

    Mr. Pavon called out all governments and Human Right organizations in the
    whole world to stay alert and proceed to firmly reject any criminal
    attempts to provoke terrorist actions that may serve to turn the Honduran
    conflict into a full blown civil war.

  20. […] Iqui Balam links to a piece in Habla Honduras in which Andres Pavón of the human rights group CODEH alleges that […]

  21. C-Rey said

    Please go to youtube and see the video’s of today’s activitiees at the Garland County Election Commission… TheCrey777 is how you will locate the video’s and you will find Charles Tapp, Garland County Election Commissioner responding that he “mislead the voters”. He has been our election commissioner for too long for this to be ignored…he knew better.

    Thanks to any of you in media that can help solve the “machinations” involved in Voter Suppression in our County and State.

  22. […] So Who Are These People, Anyway? […]

  23. […] Another missive from the self-appointed Bastions of Morality: […]