in steel magnolias sally fields loses control right after they burry shelby and darrell hannah tells

her something about shelby is looking down from heaven and smiling at them all ... or something like that... sally field goes into a rage, so much of her life is out of her control ...

just reading the headlines this morning, just thinking about the bush scab that is covering this planet and all of our lives, just thinking about the malodorous fart that this bush--along with all the rest of them--has let loose on this planet ...all of this makes me feel as outraged and out of control as sally field portrayed in that scene from steel magnolias over the death of her daughter.

life in this America, and on this planet, as we knew it right up until the bushit boy make his surging grasp of the oval office, has now completely disappeared and i am raging knowing no matter how much i, and others, have put our voices out there for the bushit boy to hear ... he has not.

he has run right over each of our voices--from that of cindy sheehan's, to that of democracy now's amy goodman's, to that of bev conover's onlinejournal and all of the people who write there, to that of buzzflash, and all of the people who write there, to those voices here, to voices anywhere in the universe which have risen against the bushit boy, his malodorous fart, his equally malodorous poppy and family roots; he has just run over each of us and none of us has been able to stop the bastard, black soul of the bushit boy.

where are the shirley mclaines and olympia dukakis' that, like in the movie, can make us all feel better?

They ARE on the internets.....the internet is the Last Frontier. Over at TPMcafe, they are having this discussion: What was THE tipping point for the defeat of the repuke party this last election? IMHO, there were many such points, but the one constant was the internets. Most people in this country are now getting their news from sources on the internet....and the lefty side of the internets has just exploded into the American conscious!

Interesting side note: In that scene at the cemetery, when they have just buried Shelby, you can see the graves of my maternal grandparents just behind Sally Field. Scene was shot at the Old American Cemetery in Natchitoches, Louisiana....a place worth visiting for its historical value, if you are down our way.

favorite films, and I've watched it many times. I can't believe that I thought that I'd never view a film about 'beauticians'! When it first came out, and people were raving about it, I thought that it would be the last film I would ever watch and/or appreciate or identify with.

I do believe MANY are getting their news from the Net, but I still think most Americans haven't figured out how lame-o the corporate media is.

However, if most Americans are getting their news from the Net, I'd like to see that link, if you can provide it. I'd revel in reading that! :hi:

last night on the Sundance Channel....admit that "most" is maybe exaggerated, but it won't be long....think about it, how many home-pages have "news" on their front page? How many ISP home-pages include the news? Admittedly, these news stories link to MSM stories, but many people go on to have the stories "interpreted" by blogs. How many main-stream news sources have either consolidated, or in the case of newspapers, closed their doors? I think it's because people are getting their news from the internets....really think that this fact hasn't caught up with the MSM yet, they don't want to realize that, either now, or very soon now, "most" people are getting their news from the internet...then going on to blogs for discussion/interpretation of that news. Not nearly enough credit has been given to the lefty blogs for the recent election results....IMHO.

"The Blog Wars" will be repeated this Saturday on the Sundance Channel...I think at 6:00 p.m. Central time. Extremely interesting.

I went specifically to see the "Festival of Lights" along the Cane River Lake. It's a very charming town & it was the first time I ate those delicious Natchitoches meat pies.

I visited the cemetary, which was a lot smaller than it appeared in the movie. So was the Cook-Taylor house, which was set on a corner lot, but was disappointingly small. Btw, the owner came outside when he saw us taking pictures of the front of the house. He was very kind & welcomed us most graciously.

You don't happen to have a good recipe for the meat pies, do you, Ann? :)

meat pies that I have eaten there were made by the local churches and sold as money-making deals. The spicy ones are heaven!

My maternal grandparents were from Natchitoches, on the Cane River, so I spent a lot of time in that picturesque town. The first time I ever kissed a boy (a real kiss) was on the bank of the Cane River during the Festival of Lights, (god, so many years ago!) Needless to say, since Steel Magnolias, the town has become rather touristy.

The cemetery is small, but did you look at the dates on some of those tombstones? A few date back to the Revolutionary War. When I was there last, some of the bricks of some of the tombs had crumbled, and if you had had a flashlight, you could have peered into the deep holes. My cousin stuck a camera down one of the holes, and took a picture, but it didn't come out. Maybe they have repaired them by now, I don't know.

I'm glad you enjoyed Natchitoches!

for about 20 minutes. We thought either there was an accident ahead or that traffic was just heavy. It turned out that the Christmas parade was going on just up ahead, plus discretionary donations were being solicited for the town festivities at the traffic light.

I really enjoyed visiting the quaint shops downtown. Truvy's hair salon is on the strip facing the Cane River. You are spot on about the city's new status as a tourist attraction. Getting on the road at night to look at the Christmas lights takes a lot of patience. Someone told me that neighborhoods in Natchitoches take their Christmas decorating very seriously. In some neighborhoods, each house is assigned which color of lights to use, so that the lighting will be in a certain sequence. Other areas, especially in the upscale areas, we saw some very elaborate, obviously made-to-order, lighted alligators, crawfish, & a huge chicken (the house belonged to the owner of some chicken company).

You're lucky to have had grandparents living there. It's a beautiful little town.

From a president in denial, hidebound to some sort of born again/neocon hybrid ideology that repudiates facts and reason in favor of hopes and wishes and guidance from an autocratic monster of a god, to a nation of citizens in deep denial about the State of Our Union.

Treacherous level of National Debt
Trade Balance of mammoth proportions
Broken Military
NSA domestic spying\
EPA narcolepsy
Corporate welfare, greed, and influence
Domestic Economy no stronger than a house of cards
Dysfunction and rampant cronyism in every area of government
Endless war

Walmart, anyone?

community theatre production of "Steel Magnolias" in 1992. In the play,
which is set entirely in Truvy's home beauty shop, M'Lynne loses it
when she is asked by her friends to talk about the experience of watching her daughter die. You could hear a pin drop in the audience.

There is a gut-wrenching core of anger, rage, sadness, that comes on top of the extremely well-written dialogue. The playwright really gives M'Lynne the words.

You have made a good point. So many of us are outraged; we have to find our voices and not be silenced. Because when we really get going, people will listen. They have to.

responded by playing golf the next day. He doesn't understand the pain of Cindy Sheehan, or any mother who loses a child, because he learned
to ignore it. Denial--as the previous poster said. There are those who rage and hurt and never heal from the experience of untimely, unnecessary death. Then there are the Barbara Bushes of the world who are in such complete and utter denial, they insulate themselves from ever, ever, being able to identify the pain of others. Look at her response to Katrina.
It's no wonder Bush is the sociopath he is.

We have to keep raging, so that others who can, will hear.

I think criticism of what she did after her daughter died is unwarranted. For one thing, I think it's perilously close to being sexist: pontificating on how she SHOULD HAVE (as a mother and as a woman) behaved.

Secondly, George W. Bush got seriously ignored during the time she was caring for her dying daughter. I think that's according to Gail Sheehy, whose account I trust as much as anyone's. I have no idea, and no reason to suspect -- and neither do you -- that her GRIEF was insufficient after the death. People do strange things in grief and denial frankly is one of them -- IF denial is something we can accurately accuse her of in this case. Wanting to escape the stark and unremitting reality of death is another.

When my father died, and my husband and I flew home from overseas on emergency leave for 2 weeks, we all went to the CIRCUS one day, probably less than a week after my father's funeral. It was great -- reat for my toddler son, great for me and my mother to have something other than our own grief and loss to focus on, and a nice break for DH. I'm absolutely certain that there are people who would criticize us for that -- and may have at the time. But I won't find one moment to feel any guilt over it. Humans have a right to go thru their grief in their own way (and sometimes they get to try to avoid it for a time too).

I just think it's inappropriate, not knowing more about her circumstances, to be too hard on her over that. There are INNUMERABLE other things, about which we know much more, to criticize about her.

Sorry.

development of George Bush, and the profound effect the actions of his mother had on him--especially surrounding the circumstances of the death of his younger sister, Robin, I recommend reading psychiatrist/psychoanalyst Justin Frank's book, "Bush on the Couch". An excerpt:

"Without an instructive example of how to experience grief, George W. was deprived of the opportunity to learn to mourn, which a child typically learns by watching his parents go through the process. An exercise in holding and integrating the contradictory emotions of love and sadness, mourning is necessary for psychological growth. The capacity to feel sorrow is a prerequisite for the ability to be compassionate, to feel concern for others; managing loss is essential to both personal growth and the development of empathy for others...

The best way to address such a loss is to talk, to interact, to see the parents mourn, to share the loss, to help the child talk about his conflicting feelings--his anger as well as his relief. The apparent silence on the topic within the Bush family half a century ago set a dangerous precedent for the impressionable young George. Viewed through the dehumanizing perspective of childhood, the example of his parents laid the foundation for the development of a powerful, lifelong coping mechanism, grounded in a self-protective indifference to the pain of others."

p. 15-16.

any documentation that there wasn't any grieving that went on. That's my complaint: AFAIC we don't KNOW that if all we have is the anecdote that she played golf the next day.

Does he have more? Do you?

The golf anecdote is pretty damning, but I don't believe personally that it's conclusive -- not as one isolated incident in an entire lifetime since that little girl's death.

I'm just looking for more -- more confirmation that she was a monster, or more confirmation that she was in total denial to the extent that she warped W by not grieving. What *I* know is too limited. If YOU know more, spill it, by all means.

Further, grief can happen prior to the event of death. When my MIL first took ill in her 80s, I knew (intuitively) that it was "the beginning of the end" for her, and whether I wanted to or not, I started my own grieving process right then and there. We ALSO have reports of George W. being so affected by his mother's care and concern over the dying daughter that he told his playmates that he couldn't come out and play, he had to stay and help his mother feel better. (Another way for a kid to get warped -- having to be the parent, but that's another aspect entirely.)

I'll just repeat: *I* don't know enough about the golf date and the immediate or even longterm aftermath of Barbara Bush's loss, and until I hear some details differently, I don't believe anyone else does either.

And frankly it makes me insane to sit here coming anywhere close to defending her, but damn! I'm tired of sloppy thinking and sexist or sexist-sounding, kneejerk criticism of women we happen to dislike because they're rightwing.

That for me was one of the funniest moments of the movie, when Olympia Dukakis grabs Shirley MacLaine and tells Sally Field to hit her. "Hit Weezer!" It'll make you feel better, and actually give Weezer a chance to do something right for once in her miserable life by taking the punch.

I have a few candidates in mind for the Weezer role.