Today is the first anniversary of my blog on OpenSalon.  I had never blogged anywhere, and I feared that if I did, it would contain little more than my self-involved ramblings.  Hopefully I have occasionally risen above this level.  I don't know.

 I usually don't forward… Read full post »

On Oct. 30, it was confirmed that my 91-year-old grandmother had cancer.  On November 1, we met with an oncologist, who told us he thought she had less than a month.  She was suffering with blood clots that were cutting off circulation to her feet, which were turning black and could… Read full post »

It was not today, but Thursday over a week ago that I woke up in the morning and walked past my grandmother's room.

"Take me to the hospital.  I wanna go now, this way, " she said, asking to go in her robe and slippers.

Granny is normally a hospital avoidance… Read full post »

Charles Gibson on the nightly news just introduced a segment comparing supposedly incompatible terms of justice. Director Roman Polanski is in a Swiss jail "on 30-year-old charges of having sex with a teenaged girl."  Yet on the other hand, there is a known money launderer running a bank an… Read full post »

I cannot even make an intelligent post of all this, but when has that ever stopped me before?

 Several weeks ago after a long car trip to see her lone surviving brother, my grandma had problems with her right leg, which was swollen and red.  She is a thin person, delicate because… Read full post »

"In September, lie all the things you've lost..." So began a poem by Rachel Sams, a girl from my creative writing class senior year.  She was much more talented than I, as you can see. 

That first line is all the more true for me because September is a birthday month… Read full post »

Oh, snark, how I appreciate you.  How I glory in you.  How I fear that you will be used against me.  I have not many gifts, but I do have the gift of snark.  Oftentimes I keep it to myself, but sometimes I unleash it.  And worse, if I… Read full post »

 This is how I feel, mostly not about the whole editor's pick thing, but because Kerry ignores me.  I've sent flowers and cards.  I burned a CD for him of our songs.  I've called him, and a suspicious person answers. "Who is this?"  I ask.

"Who is this?" suspicious per… Read full post »

I was originally going to compose a long post about the emotional rollercoaster that was last night's town hall meeting on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  Keep in mind that these are people still bitter over their battles with insurance companies post-Katrina, so would they have a more nuanced view… Read full post »

“When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.”  C.S. Lewis quotes (British Scholar and Novelist. 1898-1963)

Sometimes in life we wander through the wood… Read full post »

 The following is from the SOA Watch organization, which is trying to close the School of the Americas (renamed WHINSEC).  Go to http://www.soaw.org for more information on how our government exports torture and blackmail to Latin America, all from Ft. Benning, GA.

House of… Read full post »

The following is from the SOA Watch organization, which is trying to close the School of the Americas (renamed WHINSEC).  Go to http://www.soaw.org for more information on how our government exports torture and blackmail to Latin America, all from Ft. Benning, GA.

House of Representati… Read full post »

On Monday, Jon and Kate held a conference to report that their TLC reality show competitors, the Roloff family of "Little People, Big World," are a scandalous clan.

"Those children are crying for help...and comforters that match the window treatments!" said Kate. 

"The mom on the show---" … Read full post »

I don't know what you're doing this evening, but I am going to a very important meeting at El Torito (not. its. real. name.).

I was invited (by a message in my Spam folder) to go to a meet-up group on the paranormal, 9-11, and alien abductions.  From my back and… Read full post »

"It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door, 'Y'all remember to… Read full post »

"...When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying 'What are these stones?' then you shall let your children know..." Joshua 4: 21-22

Years ago my uncles went to Mississippi's Vietnam Veterans Memorial and came back with a picture.  Families of the dead soldiers were asked to send… Read full post »

On the Mary Wollstonecraft blog, there is an interview with me up now.  There are tons of interviews that will be up in the coming days.  Men and women have been asked for their views on feminism and discrimination and how these issues have affected their lives.

http://open.salon.com/blog/m… Read full post »

1.  You know how like....people?  Will sometimes put....like....extra words in their sentences...like...they don't know...like...what to say and they...pause like and kind of..um....squint...or wince and it's like.....they're..uh....word constipated?  And they make things questions..th… Read full post »

Contact Congress Now!

"At the end of this week, Representative Jim McGovern will reintroduce the Latin America Military Training Review Act! In the 110th Congress, this legislation was known as HR 1707 and for more information about the bill and whether your Member of Congress supported it, che… Read full post »

Of course, I can't imagine quite what it would be like to be Bristol Palin. A family with money, in the spotlight, in Alaska. An ambitious Republican mother married to a handsome 'dude.' My own parents were lower-middle class, more like Sarah Palin describes her own. We always had a roof… Read full post »

Here are links to the first and second parts of this:

First Part

http://open.salon.com/blog/deliablack/2009/04/22/on_friday_i_meet_with_a_parole_board_member

Second Part

http://open.salon.com/blog/deliablack/2009/04/24/today_i_met_with_the_parole_board

I've already written how we were meeting… Read full post »