Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Momma Pajamma

May 11, 2014 by mountainmornings

Happy Mother’s Day to one and all. This post will have to be short since I’m busy being  a Nana currently. Nothing can prepare you for the look in your grand daughter’s eyes when she sees you again. It’s not heart warming, it’s heart melting – literally your heart just implodes inside itself. Kaboom, or “TaDa!” as we like to say.

I know I’ll never have to pick dozens of bees out of my son’s clothes again. Or sit in an ice cold skating rink and cheer him on to do ice hockey battle. I’m done sitting on the sidelines for my daughter’s cheerleading at Mini/Mighty/Football games. And I’m finished hosting sleepovers of girls doing their nails while watching Dirty Dancing. Teaching them to ride bikes and drive cars was mostly Bob’s job, but the rest of it – the messy, miraculous ritual, the day-in-and-day-out care, love, feeding, clothing, nursing and management job was the job I signed up for.

And I was just starting to realize that my job was done. That in fact, they wouldn’t really need me for the rest of their lives. Meaning that Bob and I could pat ourselves on the back; after all, we’d raised two, count ’em two, happy, confident, compassionate and fairly successful kids! Ahem, I meant adults.

But before we could get too comfortable in our new roles as parents of adult children, we became Grandparents. And now I know that all the miraculous love and bliss that babies bring into their new home, it just gets squared when you become the Nana. Because you realize it’s not the end of the world when they bruise their knee, or follow behind you cutting down all the perennials you’ve just finished planting. We take a longer view, we know this thing called childhood doesn’t last that long.

So when the Love Bug just spontaneously snuggles her damp head under my arm while I’m reading her a story about a monkey named George, I melt. Being a Grandmother is the reward for all those sleepless nights and teenage moments of angst. Grandparenting gives us another chance, to love unconditionally.

Watching Little League Baseball last night

Watching Little League Baseball last night

Well I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m going
I’m on my way, I’m taking my time, but I don’t know where
Goodbye to Rosie, the queen of Corona

By Paul Simon, Me and Julio

 

 

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Throwback Poetry

May 8, 2014 by mountainmornings

I recently discovered a website called “Letters of Note.” http://www.lettersofnote.com Whoever thought of digging up old letters from famous, and not so famous, writers was genius. It all started with an obit that EB White wrote for his dog Daisy, who happened to be sniffing the flowers in front of a shop when a carriage careened into her. Most of us know White because of his spider named Charlotte; he is masterful at writing for children. I always thought that a good children’s writer had to have never really left childhood behind. There had to be a Peter Pan quality to him when he wrote about Daisy; that she was born, “an unqualified surprise to her mother.”

My Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Tootsie Roll, was extremely surprised when she delivered her brood in the corner of the living room, on the good rug, and NOT in the whelping box I had so carefully arranged in the family room. And as most doggie people know, each and every one of her puppies had a personality all its own. One was sweet and cuddly, one was aggressive and always first to dine. One loved to explore and one was always hiding. Blaze, the one we kept, was the alpha male. He seemed to know he was in charge of his siblings from the moment he opened his eyes. I was writing for the newspaper back then, but now how I wish I’d put pen to paper about the pups.

I am thinking of writing some small poems about our dog Buddha for the Love Bug. I’ve already asked my artistic sister Kay to illustrate a story or two. Buddha came from the SPCA at the Jersey Shore and looked a little like a polar bear – he was a hundred pounds of white fluffy Samoyed-mixed love! So tell me what you think of my first attempt at a beginning?

Buddha Springs into Action

Buddha awoke and stretched himself

Gently into downward dog

Looking up, he thanked the tree

Shimmering in the morning fog

The tree was full of birds

Singing sweetly, flapping wings

Dancing in her branches

A Blue Heron was the King

“Good Morning Buddha Bear,” he said

“Happy day to one and all”

The big white dog sat down at once

To hear the sea wind call

Buddha Bear in the Blue Ridge

Buddha Bear in the Blue Ridge

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Clotheslines and Climate Change

May 6, 2014 by mountainmornings

It’s almost summertime and the living isn’t so easy. Today, the third Climate Assessment has been released by the White House, and our general prognosis isn’t so good. We’re heating up the planet, severe storms are increasing and seas are rising. It’s like a set-up for a sci-fi horror movie with Tom Cruise, only it’s real. But we all know that. I have a friend who lives in town and sold her car. She’s happy walking most places and discovered Charlottesville’s excellent transit system. She gets an “A” in my book! For the rest of us, I’m afraid we’re failing miserably.

Living a green life isn’t so hard and it’s not so new. Back in the late 60s when I was in college, we learned about chemical dyes that didn’t degrade in sewers. We knew how to compost, and in fact we did back in the Berkshires. In Windsor in the 70s I had a solar clothes dryer – I hung my babies’ diapers on a clothesline.

My old fashioned diapers

My old fashioned diapers

We were all children at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius, and we felt an affinity for the land. The three Rs were real and we lived by them. I rescued my baby’s crib from the curbside, along with her rocking chair; we recycled all our friends’ baby clothes and toys. We planted a Victory Garden!

So what happened? The 80s happened. Right about the time we left the Berkshires, when the Rocker was just 2 and the Bride was 7, I noticed some distinct cultural differences. Maybe not as obvious as moving to the South, but strange just the same.

Moving back to suburban NJ from New England left me in super culture shock. Women thought I was odd because I mowed our lawn, with a push mower – was it because Bob didn’t do it or because we didn’t have a landscaping service? And I ground our coffee, with a coffee grinder… and I actually played with the kids on a field trip, instead of standing under a tree comparing nail polish. Reaganomics was the law of the land. If we didn’t eventually move closer to the beach, I might not have survived that transplant.

Ostentatious, obsequious wealth was flaunted by our neighbors with their MacMansions sitting nearly empty of furniture and their big SUVs in 3-car garages. I put up a clothesline even though one mom told me she didn’t think the town allowed them. We always believed in asking for forgiveness instead of permission. Then I got back to the business of reporting on town meetings and school budgets; interviewing interesting people and writing biographies.

And it didn’t much concern me when the town’s Annual Meeting on January 1st started with an Anglican minister and a prayer. He was a hospice preacher and an EMT who rode on the ambulance. His yearly prayer (they didn’t do this before every meeting) was pretty interfaith and profoundly peaceful.

But praying for this planet won’t stop our reliance on fossil fuels and the corrupt lobbying by corporations to keep the status quo.

The assessment warns that current efforts to implement emissions cuts and to adapt to changes are “insufficient to avoid increasingly negative social, environmental, and economic consequences”. According to the White House, climate and weather disasters cost the US more than $100bn in 2012, the country’s warmest year on record.http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27296417

I’ve started following a Canadian climate scientist on Twitter, Katherine Hayoe @KHayhoe, along with Michael Mann the “hockey stick” scientist. She is sort of an anomaly since Hayoe is an Evangelical Christian, with a compelling world view. It would seem that religion and science CAN co-exist! Chris Mooney at Slate just wrote an excellent essay, “Why Should Evangelical Christians Care About Climate Change?”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/05/conservative_christians_and_climate_change_five_arguments_for_why_one_should.html

Why indeed. Here’s one reason – our grandchildren.

Visiting with Great Grandmamas

Visiting with Great Grandmamas

The Bug's new-fasioned diapers

The Bug’s new-fasioned diapers

 

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Let Them Go

May 4, 2014 by mountainmornings

I laughed out loud while watching the White House Correspondent’s Dinner last night. The whole “Orange is the new black” about Speaker Boehner; and “Mecare” getting young people into doctor’s offices so they can see what a magazine is really like. And the bit about CNN still searching for their table… I’ll tell you one thing, this news junkie is fed up with CNN. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel started speaking in German at the Rose Garden conference the other day on CNN, and kept speaking in German without any translation, I switched to MSNBC and I’m not looking back. If you missed any of last night’s joke fest, here it is http://www.c-span.org/video/?318916-1/white-house-correspondents-dinner

But the abhorrent act of kidnapping 300 young Nigerian girls from their school by Boko Haram terrorists was not a joking matter, and the fact that Western news outlets took their time getting around to the story only doubles the crime.

International outrage has been slow to build, but it’s coming now – the story has been covered extensively in the media, and girls’ education proponent and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai spoke out against the abductions. Nigerians are marching in the streets demanding the girls be brought home alive. #BringBackOurGirls is trending on Twitter.

On the surface, these kidnappings follow a theme we’ve seen across the globe: religious extremists don’t want to see girls getting the kind of education that will allow them to enter the workforce, because they correctly understand that education sets girls on a path to economic independence and self-reliance. Education also makes girls (and women) less dependent on men, less subservient to authority and less acquiescent to the social and religious strictures that don’t serve girls’ overall interests – educated women are more likely to refuse practices like female genital cutting, for instance, better able to resist domestic violence, and less tolerant of discrimination at home and in society.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/kidnapped-nigeria-school-girls-boko-haram-education

Ah religion, I just can’t say enough about it. But here we see again, how black girls in another part of the world are not valued by Westerners in the same way white girls are perceived. We saw it in the time lapse of our response to Rwanda, as opposed to Bosnia. Genocide by blacks or by whites, one trumped the other. Time and again we’ve seen Amber Alerts for white girls, but the black child’s family is left waiting for some time period to pass because somehow that child must be complicit. Imagine what would have happened if 300 school girls outside of Paris had been kidnapped?

The trial of Alexis Murphy’s kidnapper and murderer, a local girl I wrote about before, is getting started this week. Without a body, it will be a hard case to win.

Our media outlets would rather cover a missing Malaysian plane, or a racist rancher’s rant. Sparring with Putin is at least newsworthy! But time has passed for these Nigerian girls who have most likely been sold into slavery. If we can do one thing, it would be to pressure our legislators to demand more resources be used in helping to find these girls. We can also write to the Nigerian embassy in DC.http://www.nigeriaembassyusa.org/index.php?page=contact-us

images

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Abnormally Normal

May 2, 2014 by mountainmornings

Did you feel normal growing up? The Rocker’s friend back in Jersey, a guy from his early high school heavy metal band years, asked me this question the other day. He was writing a paper for his college upper-level Psych course and had to interview someone from another generation. By that I think he meant a “senior!” Why he picked the mom who served bagel dogs and root beer after school is beyond me. Needless to say, I was flattered.

“When you were growing up, did you ever think you were abnormal in any way?”

Doesn’t everybody? But that’s not what I said. I said “Yes,” and went on to try and explain how this could be a good thing. I knew I was abnormal because my name didn’t match my foster parents. First of all, I was the only kid I knew with foster parents. My last name belonged to a father who had died in Scranton and a mother who had been crippled in a head-on car crash. Having two moms in two different states wasn’t normal then. No matter how hard I tried, I could never really be their child.

I said that I also felt different because I had strawberry blond hair. But that’s not the same as saying that my signature mane turned almost white in the summer and got redder as the winter sun faded. That I felt like a too tall, skinny, scrawny kid. That my real (biologic) mom, the Flapper, said she could always find me in a crowd. That I made myself a bowl of spaghetti at night before bed to put on some weight. That I dreamed of having jet black hair just so I could fit in and not stand out. Later I would thank my Nana’s mahogany red hair and the Flapper’s platinum blond bob for bestowing their unique recessive genes on me; but as a kid, I was mortified.

“How have your own attitudes toward what’s normal and what’s abnormal changed over the course of your lifetime?”

Now that is a loaded question. First of all, what constitutes a “family” is very different. My hodge-podge of half/step/foster and biologic siblings is pretty tame, or normal today. Marriage equality has leveled the playing field. Growing up with a Jewish step-father in my teen years, with college educated brothers, I stepped out of the cocoon my foster parents had made for me. That little Catholic school girl became a child of the universe, with a rather striking liberal, progressive bent. Except for one thing, I’m pretty much in agreement with most of my current family’s attitudes.

That one thing is the death penalty. My step-father, who was a town judge, must have had some effect on me since even the Flapper was against the death penalty. For years I differed with the rest of my loved ones, like a lone wolf cast adrift whenever the subject came up. My reasoning was subjective; if somebody ever killed one of mine, I’d be the first to retaliate. There were, in my mind, circumstances that should relieve the taxpayer from paying for a monster’s life in prison…like killing a child, a police officer, or planning to ram planes into tall buildings etc.

But my philosophy about government-induced-death has been slowly changing. After reading about “false confessions” and mistaken convictions once DNA evidence was introduced. And knowing how the justice system is rigged toward the wealthy. After seeing how most of the civilized world has stopped killing its prisoners – so much so that the needed chemicals are hard to come by for a lethal injection. And this week, after hearing about the botched execution in Oklahoma, it became harder for me to justify my pro-death penalty stance. I could rant about pro-lifers not caring about the children born into poverty, and yet I found myself in their camp, a double paradox, when it came to the death sentence.

Then I read why those two prisoners were on death row. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/30/why-were-the-two-inmates-in-oklahoma-on-death-row-in-the-first-place/?tid=pm_national_pop And now I wonder why the gun lobby doesn’t try to bring back the firing squad. And I’m only half kidding.

The lone Conservative, surrounded by his Liberal sisters

The lone Conservative, surrounded by his Liberal sisters

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Naked Prejudice

April 29, 2014 by mountainmornings

An old/rich/white/guy tells his mistress not to bring one of the most respected black basketball players in the world to one of his games. He owns the NBA team you see. And whatever you do, he told her, don’t post any pictures with him on Instagram. This octogenarian knows about Instagram? Why is he all hot and bothered? Because his other old/rich/white/guy friends are calling him up… to what, ridicule him or complain about his loss of photographic control over his seriously augmented girlfriend?

Why am I not surprised. Some people are incapable of change. This guy has been living in his NBA bubble of privilege, making money off the very black backs he’d rather not see taking a selfie with his paramour. We all feign outrage. But in reality, the racism that is rampant in the sinew of our country’s soul has been on display for all to see for years. It’s a systemic problem, a kind of subtle apartheid that I’ve mentioned before. We took down all the “Whites Only” signs, and replaced them with hidden borders for our public schools. And since an education is a one way ticket out of poverty, our African American brothers and sisters haven’t got a chance.

Just because we integrated public transportation, swimming pools and restaurants with the Civil Rights Act in 1964; just because we passed Brown vs the Board of Education a decade before, doesn’t mean the courts haven’t thrown federal integration laws out the window. Since 2000, school districts throughout the South have been released from enforcing laws mandating court-ordered integration. A recent article in the Atlantic puts it flat out there. Sixty years later “Naked prejudice” hasn’t gone away:

Some big-city school systems are as segregated as they were in the 1960s. Leading public universities are admitting fewer black students than a decade ago. The black-white wealth gap has grown in recent years. Blacks are no more likely than whites to use illegal drugs, yet four times more likely to be arrested and jailed for it.     http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/04/segregation-now/359813/

Some people cast their votes for an issue. This Republican slashed that town’s budget and brought a project in on time; that voter is fiscally conservative. This Republican voted against an assault weapon ban, I’m voting him out! That’s your progressive liberal. Let’s not even bring up abortion. But never let anyone tell you the power to select a Supreme Court Judge isn’t awesome, and a very good reason to vote for a Democrat!. Thanks to an increasingly conservative judiciary over the Bush years, courts have ruled that school districts no longer have to prove they had eliminated segregation. And that, along with gerrymandered districts based on racial populations has produced our current “apartheid school system.”

Now when I see another old/rich/white/guy rancher holding up a dead calf, complaining about having to pay grazing taxes on federal land, hating our government and telling us he thinks blacks had it better during slavery, I have to turn away. I stopped laughing at these idiots long ago, because they make me physically ill.

"The Problem we All (STILL) Live With" by Norman Rockwell

“The Problem we All (STILL) Live With” by Norman Rockwell

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

For the Love of Animals

April 24, 2014 by mountainmornings

Shouldn’t Animal Rights be a bi-partisan thing? We all know the EPA is a left-wing agency and that gun owners and hunting enthusiasts are pretty much right-sided. Yet shouldn’t they all want to protect the animals they love/eat/hunt equally? I posted an innocuous sentence on Facebook about one Canadian Goose and started a mini-firestorm.

Animal Rights. It’s a relatively new movement that gained steam with the publication of a book, Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer in 1975. Before we knew it, chimps were being freed from laboratory cages and walking in a fur coat down Madison Avenue could be considered dangerous. For me, I drew the line somewhere in the broad/general/middle. I grew up with dogs, I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have a dog and though I never really dressed them up (except for that one Xmas picture), I considered each and every one a part of the family.

But my anthropomorphism stopped there. If we needed our medical students to learn something of a child’s vein and practicing on a cat was necessary, so be it. Today the dog and cat labs at most medical schools have been replaced by virtual learning devices. Sacrificing a rabbit to see if a woman was pregnant was common in the last century, but experimenting on a rabbit’s eye to test mascara seemed senseless. Even today, scientists will use pigs and not just crash test dummies, to determine the best, safest design in car seats for children. Maybe you can see where I’m heading?

If an animal’s life could serve a greater good – save a child’s life for instance – then I would be alright with that, within of course some pre-required ethical limits.

What’s troubling me lately is so many small, but extremely vocal groups have emerged that would like to see pretty much all animals exist only in their natural environments; even as we humans dig, damage and develop their natural habitat. Let’s get rid of the horse drawn carriages in NYC! What about Charleston, they are a big industry in SC. And though I do feel that Orcas should probably not be swimming around in a tiny Sea World pool, I’m surprised by the latest rally that will be taking place this weekend in front of the John Paul Jones Arena. You see the circus is coming to town!

A group called Voices for Animals says “…circus animals spend about 11 months a year traveling, chained up and isolated.” They are distributing a video that shows an elephant being abused to further their cause. “The tools of the training include bull hooks, which are similar to fireplace pokers and electric prods. Animals are beaten, they are isolated. Highly social animals are isolated,” said Wendy Harper, a member of Voices for Animals.       http://www.nbc29.com/story/25323589/animal-rights-group-protests-circus-coming-to-jpj

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus of course have denied any abusive treatment and say their trainers have absolutely lovely relationships with their animals. The truth I’m sure is somewhere in the middle, depending on the trainer and the size of the circus. But my kids grew up going to the Big Apple Circus every year, and it was a wonderful experience all around. And for the Love Bug, going to the zoo with friends is a favorite outing. Where else would we see a giraffe in the US? I remember bringing the Rocker to see a brand new baby Rhinoceros born at the Bronx Zoo, I’m sure I was more thrilled than he was.

Should we send our Giant Pandas back to China from the National Zoo? Send all the horses pulling tourists off to a farm in Montana and the elephants in the circus back to India? Let’s send all those geese back to Canada! I believe the Big Apple doesn’t have an elephant act anymore, partially because there are not a lot of them left, and maybe also because of the protesters. But our species doesn’t get to lay waste to animal habitats, pull more and more fossil fuels from the ground and continue to make trillions of dollars with disastrous consequences for our planet AND tell us where and when we can see wild animals. Sorry folks, it doesn’t work like that.

Dogs in the Wild while surrounded by an Invisible Fence

Dogs in the Wild while surrounded by an Invisible Fence

My Facebook sentence? “And in breaking Cville news, a lone Canadian Goose walked across Rt 29 N this afternoon and all 5 lanes stopped for him #whyiloveva”

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Carbon Bootprint

April 22, 2014 by mountainmornings

Happy Earth Day everyone. I was reminded of my favorite psychologist, Abraham Maslow’s, saying this morning, “At any given moment we have two options; to step forward into growth, or to step back into safety.”  I loved his theories when I was an undergrad Psych major – only I’d add another option. We could also choose to stand still and do nothing.

Doing nothing is a choice. We all know these people. They are the ones who say, “Oh we tried that before and it didn’t work.” They are the self-involved, solipsistic loners. If they are not talking about themselves, well then what’s the point? Which is why a film about a young environmentalist falling for the middle-aged mom of a prescription-drug addicted daughter caught my attention.

“Bottled Up” explores the life of an enabler. Melissa Leo plays the quirky, lovable mother who flirts with denial like a pro – because for any addicted child to continue to live at home in their childhood bedroom, they would need the full cooperation of someone, right? Getting this reclusive mom to stop doing what she’s always done, and open her heart to a little, light Indie film romance gives this timely, weighty topic a humorous edge.

This Earth Day, instead of committing to changing your light bulbs, or remembering your grocery totes, why not think about what parts of your psyche may need an overhaul. Throw out the cobwebs in your head that keep you stuck in a “monkey mind,” adrift in a sea of indecision and inertia.

Instead of worrying about your carbon footprint, today let’s pull on our work boots. Get out in the yard, make the choice to start living a more healthy life. To make a few small, incremental changes toward growth, thank you Dr Maslow! After all, if we heal ourselves, maybe the planet will have a chance? Our hydrangeas need pruning and food! I’ll  eat more oranges, walk more and complain less. Maybe try to avoid sick/germ carrying people – unless it’s my Love Bug, then all bets are off. I’ve been wondering if all the Puffs tissues I’ve been going through with my latest virus are biodegradable?!

Speaking of my little Easter bunny. This is what you get when your adult children have to work on Easter Sunday. The Bride, my Jewish ER doctor/daughter and her husband the Christian Groom, who was on call in the MICU, sent the Bug off to a day filled with chocolate and jelly beans courtesy of their wonderful Nanny Kristy and her son Caiden. And for this moment, I am eternally grateful.        10271536_10203190002052914_8222434554150655467_n

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Fashion Fix

April 18, 2014 by mountainmornings

By no means am I a fashionista. I know I know, it’s the second post in two weeks about fashion, but this time it’s a new angle, two new angles to be exact. If you like to know where your food is coming from, and you love the ‘ farm to table’ movement, you’re going to love this company – JUST! http://projectjust.com

JUST is a start-up company my BFF’s daughter, Natalie Grillon, co-founded to create transparency in the fashion industry. They help connect designers to ethical suppliers in the fashion supply chain. When we consumers hear about child labor in silk factories in  developing countries we are appalled but what can we do? Boycott a store, look for another label? Very often the thread from one silk or cotton farm in Northern Uganda to a store in the US can be convoluted.

In a nutshell, JUST provides designers with a database to search for ethical suppliers that will fit with their specialty and geographic location. When their clothing reaches the racks, it will be tagged with a JUST barcode so that we can immediately trace the journey of our new purchase. I absolutely love this idea; it’s fair trade all around. After spending time in the Peace Corps, Natalie received her MBA from Cornell where she studied Sustainable Global Enterprise at S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. just-mobile-view

Congratulations Natalie, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you at a TEDx conference soon! I can’t wait to start seeing those JUST tags in Cville stores.

And next up is an online fashion company that would like to become your own personal shopper! Now I’ve never used a stylist, though some might say I would benefit from one. I remember when the kiddos were little and people would ask me where I got a certain item of clothing, I’d look down, look flummoxed for a minute because let’s face it, I was sleep-deprived most of the time, and then it would dawn on me. “OH, I picked this up on vacation in (insert our latest jaunt).” Because all kidding aside, shopping with a toddler in tow was a nightmare. Half the time I’d be trying to find the Rocker running between racks of clothing.

Well the Bride just turned me on to Stitch Fix http://www.stitchfix.com. Genius idea really especially for young women with little ones and little time. You go to their site, fill out a quick style chart about your likes “Boho Chic” and dislikes “Glamorous,” your size and the kind of lifestyle your clothes would need to represent, like mostly work or casual or evening, (I wish they had mountain-dwelling-writing- nana) and Voila! For $20 they will ship you a package with their picks and you keep what you like and return what you don’t.  Here’s one of their Pinterest pages I like http://www.pinterest.com/stitchfix/wanderlust/ which seems apropos.

Wishing everyone a joyous and warm Easter Sunday. And I thought you’d enjoy this throwback picture to my pre-adolescent self with my red headed cousin Joey in Dover, NJ. Notice the gloves and the Easter corsage! It’s pretty obvious I was fashion-challenged!

Chris n Joey 20140418 web 2

 

 

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, journal | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Identity Politics

April 16, 2014 by mountainmornings

Do you take offense easily? Are you wedded to being politically correct in everything you say and do? A few years ago I took a course on Buddhism at UVA. The first project our instructor asked us to do was to write down a list of words to describe ourselves. You can imagine when we gathered them together on the blackboard what that list looked like – lots of “mothers,” “fathers,” “friends,” and family ties and occupations galore. I probably added “writer,” and “wife” to the mix. The purpose if I recall correctly, was for us to banish all those words from our consciousness, words that separate us into different groups by clan or class or religion or education, and think in terms of a more universal, inclusive identity. We are all human, deal with it.

Now I’m not writing this just for Bob, who absolutely hates political correctness. He has since the term first appeared. I have to admit that what first attracted me to him was his iconoclastic nature, so even when I’m disagreeing with him about something, I understand his position, for the most part. So when I read this essay in The Spectator by Nick Cohen, I immediately forwarded it on to him. Can we really change the world simply by changing the words we use? I grew up when “mental retardation” was considered a birth defect, and calling someone “retarded” wasn’t cursing, it was just a fact. These children were not mainstreamed and so we knew very little about them. Then later we used words like “intellectual disability.”

Worry about whether you, or more pertinently anyone you wish to boss about, should say ‘person with special needs’ instead of ‘disabled’ or ‘challenged’ instead of ‘mentally handicapped’ and you will enjoy a righteous glow. You will not do anything, however, to provide health care and support to the mentally and physically handicapped, the old or the sick. Indeed, your insistence that you can change the world by changing language, and deal with racism or homophobia merely by not offending the feelings of interest groups, is likely to allow real racism and homophobia to flourish unchallenged, and the sick and disadvantaged to continue to suffer from polite neglect. An obsession with politeness for its own sake drives the modern woman, who deplores the working class habit of using ‘luv’ or ‘duck’, but ignores the oppression of women from ethnic minorities. A Victorian concern for form rather than substance motivates the modern man, who blushes if he says ‘coloured’ instead of ‘African-American’ but never gives a second’s thought to the hundreds of thousands of blacks needlessly incarcerated in the US prison system. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-cohen/2014/04/you-sexistracistliberalelitist-bastard-how-dare-you/

Cohen believes the right and the left are equally responsible for pitting one group against another, and fighting pretend wars so that all that exists really is the argument. Think about that video of Obama saying something about the middle of the country, or was it PA, “…clinging to their religion and their guns.” Think about that leaked video of Romney at that $50,000 a plate dinner where he said it wasn’t his job to win the 47 percent of voters who were committed to President Obama, because they are “dependent on government” (and he will) “never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” That pretty much deep-sixed his campaign. And I think it’s true. The media is always making it about us and them, except every now and then when a clear voice cuts through the rubble.

“As the late and much-missed Robert Hughes said, ‘We want to create a sort of linguistic Lourdes, where evil and misfortune are dispelled by a dip in the waters of euphemism’.”

Words of course can hurt, and they can heal. We returned last night from Great Grandmother Ada’s Passover Seder. We read through a whole book of words in English and Hebrew before a dinner filled with symbolism and meaning. It’s meant to recall our journey from slavery to freedom, to cement our Jewish identity, and it happened right after some KKK nut job in Kansas yelled “Heil Hitler” after killing three people. He will be charged with a “hate crime.” But Jewish people everywhere know it was so much more than hate. We remembered the six million in our reading of the Haggadah. Until we can break down the mental barriers that divide us, by race or sex or religion – and not just with words but with real legislation and dialogue devoid of political semantics – what should we expect of our politicians.

 

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »