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The Touch That Hurts

February 7, 2012 by mountainmornings

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” Happy Birthday Charles Dickens! The Victorian novelist turns 200 today and some of his best quotes never made it into his books. I didn’t know my Mother the Flapper was quoting Dickens when she would say, “Charity begins at home…” but didn’t finish the line with, “…and justice begins next door.”

Well, justice is currently being sought next door in the murder trial of an ex-UVA Lacrosse player. News people from all corners of the globe have encamped in our fair city, and closed off Court Square as Lead defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence and the Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman face off over choosing the jury in George Huguley’s trial. One is a UVA Law grad, while the other was a Law lecturer for many years so it seems that everybody is connected through one degree of separation to Jefferson’s Academical Village. We were told last night as Huguley entered the courtroom, he has grown out his hair and lost weight. Honestly?

What I find particularly touching is that a UVA Law Professor, Anne Coughlin, took it upon herself to speak with students about the legalese of Virginia’s homicide law. The 24 year old Huguley was charged with 1st degree pre-meditated murder on the day of his arrest after admitting he slammed his ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love’s head against a wall several times. But did he have “Malice of Forethought?” Was his intent to kill her after drinking all day and ramming down her apartment’s locked door? So jurors will be asked to determine his state of mind, his intentions, probably without having Huguley take the stand. IF his lawyers can prove his intention was to harm and not kill, the charge would drop to 2nd degree murder, with a possible sentence of between five and 40 years. And here we see the benefits of privilege, with money to hire the best lawyers in town.

I wish that this young man might dream tonight of 3 ghosts. I wish that Love’s parents did not have to suffer through this trial. I wish that we all had a touch that would never hurt.
Here is the Cville daily trial blog – http://www.c-ville.com/Blog/Huguely_Trial_Blog/Huguely_Trial_Day_One_Young_People_Were_Out_of_Control/?act=post

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Still I Rise

February 4, 2012 by mountainmornings

This morning I was thinking. We never know, in the midst of super bowls and puppy bowls, who among us faces the night in a kind of quiet desperation. The Komen Foundation has only apologized for de-funding Planned Parenthood, it’s not really clear if they will continue their breast health grants for women this year. If you feel strongly that politics and religion should not interfere with our public policy decisions, please consider signing this petition.
http://pol.moveon.org/komen/?rc=pac_komen_letter.t0.fb.v2.g0&color=blue

For everyone who has had to sit in a salmon-colored hospital gown awaiting her mammogram results – to anyone facing the tide of life’s flotsam, here is a little Maya just for you.

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Semantics in the Air

February 2, 2012 by mountainmornings

Thank you VA State Senator Janet Howell (D-Fairfax Co) for introducing an amendment to require a digital rectal exam and a cardiac stress test to men seeking an RX for erectile dysfunction. Her reasoning? Simple; “The Virginia senate is about to pass a bill that will require a woman to have a totally unnecessary medical procedure at their cost and inconvenience. If we’re going to do that to women, why not do that to men?” She was making the point that a little gender equity might go a long way; Howell’s amendment was defeated 21-18. The GOP Bill that requires an ultrasound before an abortion was passed in the Senate and now comes to R-Gov Bob McDonnell’s desk.

Now besides my firm opinion that our government has no more need of sticking its rules and regs between the sheets in our collective bedrooms or the stirrups in our OB-GYN office, I rise today in opposition of the right’s tendency to hijack our language…we Democratic women are “Pro-Choice” and you, Republican led legislators are “Anti-Choice.” Who gave you the right to call yourself “Pro-Lifers?” Many of you are for the death penalty. Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? This VA bill also instructs a provider (insert Doctor or NP or Planned Parenthood) to ask the woman seeking an abortion if she would like to see the ultrasound!!?? It also requires that the medical professional performing the ultrasound “…obtain written certification from the woman that she was offered the chance to see the image….(and)…to record whether the woman chose to see the ultrasound image or hear the fetal heartbeat.” Oh and then wait some number of days to actually have the abortion.

If I am not hearing a collective gasp from blue and red women everywhere…really? Margaret Atwood help us please! Thank you Sen Janet Howell for pointing out the folly of this horrendous attack against women. Why not play by their rules and submit the old pay to play amendment – if you mandate such a procedure VA, then you get to pay for it! Whoops, the government paying for an abortion procedure?
I think not. Hold onto your pen Gov Bob, bend over and cough!

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Salad Days

January 31, 2012 by mountainmornings

Yes folks, It’s almost February and it will be 65+ degrees today in the Old Dominion. Who needs Florida, right? Too much sunshine and you run the risk of skin cancer, or even lethargy. I do however wish the media might stop grumbling about the big Newt vs Mitt controversy, and bring the spotlight on the seriously malicious tactics some states have been employing to curtail voting rights. The Chairman of the Democratic Party of VA, Brian Moran sent out this action alert:

“….Republicans are pushing legislation to prevent thousands of Virginians who do not have government-sponsored (picture) identification from casting a regular ballot on election day. They want to make people who register to vote wait five days before casting an absentee ballot. They are also trying to make it illegal to help more than two people with an absentee ballot application in the same election year.” Today there is a rally in Richmond. Will we even hear about this on anything other than NPR?

Write to your legislators! Call your local town councillors! Don’t be afraid, this is a serious attempt at pushing us back to the 1950s, to discourage participatory democracy. Then when you’ve had your say, make a feel good winter salad tonight and boycott the FL returns. Cooking always helps!

Butternut and Kale Winter Salad: Easy peasy, just roast the delicious small chunks of squash, toss with organic kale that you chiffonade into slices, and toss with yummy chunks of a good cheddar cheese and some chopped almonds. How simple. Squeeze half a lemon on top and maybe a TB of EVOO and Voila! Yes, I speak French, wanna make something out of it?

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Book Club

January 27, 2012 by mountainmornings

Our Ivy Farmers have enjoyed another night of soulful talk and sinful sushi. Lucky for us, our host will often serve refreshments that are aligned with our book; and so the theme of this week’s meeting was Japan. Our book, The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka, was a rhapsodic tale of Japanese “picture brides,” young women who were purchased by proxy and sent overseas to husbands in California with only a picture in their hand, and no idea of the life of servitude and solitude to come.

Otsuka traces these women through the early part of the 20th Century to their eventual round-up into internment camps during WWII. She writes in the first person plural, “Some of us on the boat were from Kyoto and were delicate and fair, and had lived our entire lives in darkened rooms at the back of the house…” a literary device that only sharpens their stark separation from American society. Like many first generation immigrants, their children eventually reject them as well; forgetting their language and becoming rebellious teenagers. The women have lost their family and homeland, and finally their own children even as they accompany them west to the camps.

I came to understand how a community that ignores or marginalizes those who are different, ‘the other,’ can be silent and indifferent as they are taken away. I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to Mitt and Newt dissect their immigration policy.

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Mid-Winter Memoirs

January 25, 2012 by mountainmornings

Unlike the previous posts of six worded seasonal memoirs, I’ve decided to make this one just a bit different, thanks to my new friend, Courtney, who asked for a 10 word or less memoir of life. She asks, “How would you sum up your life/ relationships, experiences on the planet in 10 words or less?” My answer to this question is a family joke. Bob’s Grandfather Sam, a Jewish Russian immigrant, sat down towards the end of his life and penned his autobiography, in Yiddish. Its title is, “Better it Couldn’t be,” well at least that was the translation.

My answer to anything that goes wrong has always been, “It Could Have Been Worse.” Is that optimistic? I think so; you skin a knee, hey you didn’t break it. Fender bender, no one was hurt, right? So here is my take on Winter in Six Pictorial Memoirs so far –

It Could Have Been…

1) Another Epic Storm

2) A Holiday Binge

3) A Calvin Klein Underwear Ad

4) Lonelier

5) Bigger

6) Well, maybe it couldn’t be any more serene!

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Wood, Paper and Fiber

January 23, 2012 by mountainmornings

My home is about to be invaded by a team of dry-wall specialists. This will be the second attempt at repairing the joints in my third floor office ceiling. My writing room is octagonal in shape, with four ceiling joists that meet in a point and have cracked and ripped over time. Our builder told us the reason for this is that the outsourced guys should have used mud (who knew) and he kindly repaired everything the first time. So now we’ll try again.

Before the plaster dust starts flying, I thought you may want to know about some other artists, living and working closer to home. First of all, there is my nephew, Mark Acetelli who recently moved with his family to Mississippi from California. He does amazingly beautiful work with paint and photography. I love his ethereal figures and almost opalescent use of oils. One of his paintings was just featured on the cover of a design magazine. He is currently exhibiting here: http://www.artspacewarehouse.com/artists/MarkAcetelli.html
Or you can check him out here: http://www.acetellifineart.com/

"Three Souls," Acetelli

My wonderfully talented neighbor, Millicent Young, will be exhibiting her sculpture January 26 – March 9 at the Wood Paper and Fiber exhibit at The University of Maryland’s Art Gallery. http://www.artgallery.umd.edu//exhibition/wood-paper-fiber She works with horse hair, wood and wax paper. I love turning the corner into our neck of woods and seeing her horses grazing near their barn. And Ms Bean loves it when her Border Collie comes to play.

"Vehicle2" Young

Here is my aviary office on the last day of peace before the mudding and taping drywall storm. My fireplace is on and above it a poster – Keep Calm and Carry On – always good advice!

File by Pile

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Cheat a Little, Talk a Little….

January 21, 2012 by mountainmornings

Remember that song from The Music Man, Pick a little, talk a little…pick pick pick, talk alot pick a little more – cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap? Yet another great play from high school, committed to memory. Just ask Bob if he ever had trouble in River City, and you’ll be listening to an exact rendition of the Pool Song, for a very long time.

The Palmetto state has some troubles of its own, and has left me wondering about the qualifications of the two GOP candidates in today’s face-off. If a certain Newt liked to cheat on his wives, at least he had the common courtesy to marry his courtesan. And what a bulldog, turning his cheating ways into martyred indignation at the media talking to his ex-wife. Whereas the ever-loyal Mitt, spent his years at Bain Capital leveraging buy-outs and tending to his fiduciary responsibilities. Some call this consulting, others may call it conning. Which is why the alleged billionaire, and seemingly ethical Morman, is like Harold Hill. Pulling the wool over our eyes in his big band dance around disclosing his taxes. Can you say Cayman Islands?

Cheating the middle class, or cheating on your wife? You decide.

Of course there’s always Colbert, and a vote for Cain means a write-in for Colbert, South Carolina’s native son. Now here is a man who knows how to channel Mr. Hill. Colbert arrived at the College of Charleston in front of a full marching band playing LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem!” Complete with cheerleaders and met by a gospel choir, I just don’t see how it gets any better than that. Wait, enter stage left, Herman Cain to a full throttle rendition of Parliament’s “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk).”

All while President Obama croons to his base, “Let’s Stay Together.” Shipoopi!!

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Seeing Gertrude

January 19, 2012 by mountainmornings

On the day the internet went dark in protest of Washington power brokers’ attempts at corralling online piracy (SOPA), I boarded a train to head into the heart of the dragon. Living a mere two hour rail ride from DC, and an hour away from cousin Anita in Richmond, she suggested we board our separate early morning Amtrak trains and spend the day together in our nation’s Capitol. And instead of protesting something, we did a very civilized lady’s lunch and museum tour. What fun, what a delicious lark!

We met up at the bookstore in Union Station, and boarded the metro to Chinatown and The National Portrait Gallery. A part of the Smithsonian, it seemed there were more guards there than visitors. But we were on a mission; we targeted the “Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories” exhibit on the second floor and roamed freely for hours. An avant garde writer and collector of artists and intellectuals in her atelier on Rue Christine in Paris, I had no idea what a gender-bending, iconoclast she was. Her portraits, by some of the most famous artists of the period between the World Wars, are spectacular.
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/exhstein.html

Stein and her brother Leo purchased Henri Matisse’s Woman with a Hat for 500 francs (about $100), which was lambasted by critics in 1905. That was the beginning of the famous ex-pat’s Salon. Gertrude supported the rise of Modern Art both financially and pragmatically. “I was alone at this time in understanding Picasso, perhaps because I was expressing the same thing in literature,” she said. Her poems and stories were built in a kind of rocky, jagged style. Listening to her voice in one room of the exhibit, I felt she may have been an early rapper! After virtually marrying Alice B Toklas, who is featured in many photographs almost as a shadow, and cutting off her hair to look like a man, they opened their hearts and their home to art.

Art is no longer for the wealthy collector. Museums bring masterpieces to our cities, and the internet brings art to our fingertips. If we as a nation begin to censor the internet, what will be next? Right now we only owe China billions, might we not start to resemble it as well? Many of our scientists have had to leave this country in order to pursue their research. Our artists need freedom to exist, to create. Let’s nurture them.

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News Mad Libs

January 17, 2012 by mountainmornings

This week in local news, the jury has been picked and a date of Feb 6th was set for the murder trial of a certain UVA ________ player.

With Republicans in charge of the state Capitol, VA is deliberating about changing the gun laws. Specifically, doing away with __________ checks and repealing a ban on its citizen’s ability to purchase more than one gun per _____. You can already carry a gun on your hip in VA, you may no longer need a permit to conceal it!

Moving up to the US Presidential campaign, it seems that one GOP candidate, who carries his dog around in an ________ carrier on the roof of his car, is being maligned for speaking ______. While another who rides with a ____ in the backseat is sparring with someone named Newt… Someone needs to do a “What They Carried” expose on anyone seeking the highest office of the land.

What does the rest of the planet think of Mitt? http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/16/what_the_world_makes_of_mitt

And almost finally in world news. The _________ industry has been named the latest to employ child laborers on the Ivory Coast. Honestly, first it’s diamonds, and now we are supposed to boycott Almond Joy? Next to coffee, how can we as a people survive without __________, a Pennsylvania company? Oh, and it seems in Italy, the concept of _____ and ________ first in maritime law has expired off the coast of Tuscany.

Finally, finish this sentence for me please. “The US is___________”

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