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Freedom’s Just Another Word

April 8, 2016 by mountainmornings

Don’t talk to me about your religious freedom. Mississippi and North Carolina, you will not get my vote, my money, or my sympathy. In fact, I can’t believe I must still fly into Charlotte in order to get anywhere from Central VA. I will purposely book flights through Atlanta in the future; at least Georgia’s governor had the decency to reject yet another “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act.”

Let’s start with the whole public restroom issue. You want to be able to pee in a private stall? Great. You don’t want your daughter in the same bathroom with a transgender woman, what?

Believe me, a person who is born male, and feels like God played a trick on them because inside, in their soul, they feel female, that person is not going to violate your daughter’s bathroom stall. Remember, even in the men’s room there are separate stalls, with locks, so we can ostensibly sit on the pot. She (or he if you prefer, though whether or not they have gone through any surgery will hopefully NOT be a prerequisite for choosing a bathroom) will have spent most of their life being harassed and humiliated – unless it’s Caitlyn Jenner.

Wait, is that what you want at the women’s bathroom doors of Charlotte Airport – morality police? Like Iran, someone to make sure we women are acting and dressing accordingly; that we were born women? How will you check our femaleness? Maybe we should make transgender women wear a big “T” on their chest?

I have a revolutionary idea. Why not do what the rest of Europe has been doing for ages – put a big “WC” on every bathroom, short for “water closet,” and let the chips fall where they may! If you grew up female in the NY/NJ metro area, you never let a “Men’s Room” sign stop you from using it, since there was always a line to the Ladies! Yes, we Northeners are infidels aren’t we.

And marriage equality, still? Extreme religious groups are trying to pass bills in every state to chip away at the HUMAN rights of the LGBT community. Like the right to have an abortion if we so choose; first we saw TRAP laws to limit access to health care clinics that provide abortions, then “personhood bills.” Well guess what, the Supreme Court answered   that sticky question about abortion years ago, and the one about marriage equality? That happened last summer.

But hey, now it’s your religious right to not hire a gay person in MS because of HB1523, or sell condoms in your gas station, or use a bathroom without worrying who’s peeping through the stall! “Churches, religious charities and private business can use the law to legally not serve people whose lifestyles they disagree with. Governments must still provide services, but individual government employees can use the law to opt out.”  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35971038

Yes it is, only it’s not OK to pass a law saying we ALL have to agree with your religious beliefs, because in fact we don’t. The Law of the Land says we don’t!! You see your freedom is just another word for bigotry.

Once upon a time, women didn’t have the vote, and Black folk couldn’t sit wherever they wanted in theaters, buses, or public parks. Let’s remember that our country was founded on religious freedom – the freedom to NOT have any one specific religion make public policy – that is worth repeating since even Thomas Jefferson got this part, he built a LIBRARY in the middle of his academical village, and not a church!

We Americans have the freedom to NOT have any one specific religion make public policy ie we like to keep our church and state separate. Some of us don’t even go to church! This is not the New South I’ve come to love. Here is a picture I took at Cville’s Lee Park after the bill to relocate General Robert E Lee’s statue and rename the park was introduced. It’s time to pick sides America. IMG_4143

 

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A Mighty Wind

April 5, 2016 by mountainmornings

Spring brings daffodils, now my lilacs are beginning to bud. And along with showers, we can anticipate windy conditions. What we didn’t expect was downed power lines for Great Grandpa Hudson’s 90th birthday party. The restaurant luckily had a back-up generator for lights and stoves, while the crush of 80 people supplied the body heat we needed as temperatures outside dropped.

The wind followed us south; power lines were down on one side of Cville. Bob had to batten down the hatches of his hot tub and lock the screen porch door. I retrieved some deck furniture from the woods. We sit facing the Blue Ridge, so the the western wind can be relentless. This morning, not only can I hear the wind roaring like a train in a valley, freezing temperatures have returned.

The wind is a precursor to change. It sweeps everything clean in its path. It whips dirt into our eyes, and makes us catch our breath. We lean into it in order to stay standing, our sense of balance is in jeopardy. And since the release of leaked Panama Papers, a treasure trove of information about secret hiding places for the money of the world’s most elite, many king-pins may actually tumble and fall.

The Panama Papers comprise the biggest leak in history, involving 11.5 million documents from Panama-based Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. The documents implicate a dozen current or former heads of state, as well as scores of other politicians, celebrities and businesspeople, in owning offshore accounts that could help them conceal their wealth or avoid taxes.      http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-panama-papers-censorship-20160405-story.html

At first I thought, who cares? We all know how the uber-rich avoid taxes with high-priced lawyers and accounts in Grand Cayman. But the reaction of China is telling. Their department of propaganda, oops excuse me “information,” immediately released a bulletin telling all new media to stand down. Do not report on the Panama Papers, or else. “Find and delete reprinted reports on the Panama Papers,” according to a circular leaked on Tuesday by the California-based news website China Digital Times. “Do not follow up on related content, no exceptions. If material from foreign media attacking China is found on any website, it will be dealt with severely.”

So the supreme leader of China has been implicated in hoarding wealth, along with his brother. Only China, teetering on the brink of democracy, could so succinctly censor information. Right?

Then I heard about the DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey operated Pamela Martin and Associates, an escort agency in Washington, DC, remember her, she supposedly killed herself a few years ago. But her lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, is now threatening to open his Pandora’s Box of names and phone numbers, implicating so he says, some of our presidential candidates in a scandal. He actually started a self-funding site since he’s been disbarred after his days in the spotlight.

The Madam’s records had been sealed by our courts, but Sibley thinks we’d like to see them…which raises the question – exactly what is censorship? Oh the humanity! http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/04/_d_c_madam_lawyer_goes_to_supreme_court_to_release_escort_phone_records.html

Sibley must go through the courts to have the gag order surrounding the D.C. madam’s phone records lifted if he wants to release the information legally. Palfrey herself is deceased, and therefore cannot weigh in on the controversy. Just two weeks after being convicted on a plethora of charges related to her escort service, the D.C. madam was found dead in her mother’s shed, hanging with a rope around her neck. The cause of death was officially ruled a suicide, but there was speculation by many, including North Star Report, that the D.C. madam was killed because she knew too much about too many high-ranking clients.

Sounds like an episode of House of Cards! I could care less who was in the Madam’s little black book. But I suspect if the names are released, the American public will care quite a bit. The mighty wind that tossed a world-famous blond comb-over into the GOP, may sweep out the pompous, holier-than-thou candidates.

Let’s hear it for those investigative reporters who keep plugging, who hang on tight in a storm. They brought the Catholic Church to its knees in Boston, they delivered a world-wide laundry scheme to us via a Panama law firm, and now who knows? They just may save our republic. Here is Ms Bean, hiding from the sun, before the winds came.

IMG_4166

 

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Happy Bday Hudson

April 1, 2016 by mountainmornings

When your birth father dies before your first birthday, and your mother is 40 years old that year, the Year of Living Dangerously, and then your adopted mother is ten years older that that, you end up without a grandfather. Well I learned many things due to the circumstances of my birth in a PA coal town. My Nana gave me a certain self-confidence that was sorely needed when we’d visit her on occasion. But I never had a Grandfather; and my children, I was afraid, would follow suit.

Bob’s parents were divorced, and his father basically skipped out on our little family. But Grandma Ada found it in her heart to marry again, when the Bride was two years old. Hudson was a “younger” man, and he lived in Poughkeepsie, so we called him the Poughkeepsie Gypsy, until he packed up his wood carving tools and his pastoral counseling degree along with his African missionary artifacts and moved to NJ. He instantly became the de facto grandfather I’d never had and our kids adored him.

He would drive them around in his truck; he would film their every move with one of the first hand-held, shoulder-mounted video cameras in America; he would cook them breakfast; he would show them how to plant a seed; he would swim with them in the pool and show them how to make a hot tub out of an old bathtub; and of course, he’d teach them how to whittle. To name certain trees, to catch crabs, to fish…

Little did I know Great Grandpa Hudson would eventually send me his official Baptist pastor degree, so he could marry the Bride and Groom on Carter Mountain. Or that their red-headed baby boy would carry on his name.

Bob is doing his best to carry on his step-father’s amazing grandfathering duties when we see our babies. From the WWII sailor who was called “Red” by his shipmates, Bob has learned to slow down time, to feed birds, and turtles. To dry tears. To name bugs and touch them, to teach the Love Bug how to swim. Luckily for me, Bob never picked up the habit of enjoying a good cigar, while patching a roof in the sun. To keep the mosquitoes at bay!

So Happiest of Birthdays Hudson! You’re turning 90 this weekend and friends and family are coming together from near and far to celebrate your extraordinary life. I’m sure Great Grandma Ada will sing your praises, you’ve been her rock through some very hard times. You’ve been her traveling companion for many years, her woodcarver. Her faithful, second-chance, side-kick on the carousel of life. Your marriage was the model many of your patients aspired to have; and still is a beacon of how love works.

I simply want to thank you for being the best Grandpa Hudson to our family. The family you chose, but really, we choose you! And always will. J&M 0596

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An Abundance of Caution

March 29, 2016 by mountainmornings

Do you stop to think twice? Or do you leap into new situations, never looking back? This is characteristic of the nature/nurture phenomenon, a temperament that is born-in IMHO. You are either a risk-taker, or a risk-avoider. Look at the baby Rocker. The first time he saw the ocean, he ran right into the waves. Remember he was called “The Boy who ran before he could walk,” so he probably wasn’t even walking yet!

Not every young adult would pack up all his earthly possessions in two cars, convince his girl this is a good idea, and move across the United States to find work in the film industry. Which he did – exhibit A: The new Tarzan trailer, Music and Sound Design by my boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91rm_G1xkU8

And then there’s the rest of us, we proceed cautiously – my psychologist brother Dr Jim was just telling me about the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (TTM); “The transtheoretical model posits that health behavior change involves progress through six stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.” 

My first thought was, ‘this is so meta.’ Let’s think about how we think about changing our lives. But for behavioral psychologists, TTM is helpful when someone has been stuck in a habit, let’s say smoking, for most of his/her life and cannot seem to quit. Or they quit for awhile, and then start back down the road. It’s a way to break down the process of change into manageable, small steps. http://brainblogger.com/2009/01/25/smoking-behavior-and-the-transtheoretical-model-of-the-stages-of-change/

I’ve been thinking about this since returning to the states, and the full-frontal onslaught of political campaigns. We’d been invited to a fundraiser for Secretary Hillary Clinton and unfortunately couldn’t attend, but I’ve been listening closely to her words about the Supreme Court nominee. Lately she’s been tweeting us a very valuable history lesson:

  • At our best, America has united behind the ideal that everyone deserves a fair shot. At its best, the Supreme Court has defended that ideal.
  • In 1973, #SCOTUS ruled that women have the right to make intimate health decisions for ourselves. 
  • In 1954, #SCOTUS held that separate is not equal in our schools.
  • Last June, #SCOTUS ruled that marriage equality was the law of the land.

However her critics want to talk about emails, about trustworthiness, about her abundance of caution. She corrals the press, keeping a tight leash on reporters. She doesn’t want to debate in NY, but will in PA. She just has TOO MUCH confidence! This is what Huffington Post writer, Anna Kegler, said about Hillary’s problem:

While boys are raised to exaggerate their skills, take risks, fall down and pick themselves back up, girls are taught to think things through and second-guess, avoid risk and failure, and not raise their hand unless they’re sure they have the right answer. Lastly, girls absorb from the media that their real value [lies] in their appearance, at the same time that boys absorb the message that girls are not to be trusted.

Could this be the real issue? It’s not that Hillary can’t be trusted, it’s just that she doesn’t suffer from impostor syndrome. “By exhibiting confidence and publicly extolling their own virtues, female politicians running for office break the rules of the game and subvert existing power structures. As a politician, Clinton makes repeated asks for money and votes. Implied at the end of every ask is “because I deserve it,” and often, “more than that white man I’m running against.” http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/03/28/impostor_syndrome_is_expected_of_women_but_hillary_clinton_won_t_conform.html

Hooray for all those non-compliant women out there! Great Gma Ada used to give the Bride money for a report card that had that negative “Does not raise hand before talking” box checked! Good for you, she would say, make your voice heard! We not only wanna have fun, we want to bake and eat those cookies too! And the Rocker, well he wants to jump at the same time! Which is why he can work in Hollywood and still return to Jersey for gigs with his band, The Parlor Mob. 12418059_10154401166989316_7721114401111152149_n

Here’s to all the risk-takers, boys and those girls, the ‘tomboys’ out there who want to have it all. Don’t listen to the critics, climb trees, ride your bikes faster and faster. Reach for the stars, because you too can be President one day.

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Closing

March 25, 2016 by mountainmornings

It’s Good Friday, although I always wondered what’s so “good” about being crucified. For Christians however, it’s the beginning of the holiest time, when Jesus Christ willfully died for their sins, only to be born again on Easter. Suffering and sorrow, followed by jubilation. The casket had to be closed, in order to open.

My family is currently planning a Passover celebration, hopefully in the Blue Ridge this year. If you recall, I’ve successfully passed on the making of haroses to the Bride, and since Bob has been telling and retelling the Jewish story of exile and redemption for ages, we thought it might be a good year to have the seder at our house. Cousins and friends could come from Richmond, and Southern matzoh will be enjoyed by one and all!

But first, this week, Bob and I will visit our attorney for a house closing.

Our “second” home, the little foursquare brick home in town, the one we bought as an investment property, as a hedge on our retirement plans, has been sold. We once thought the Bride and Groom might return to Cville to raise their family, and that we might sell our “country” house and move into town. It’s a wonderful, hundred year old house, with a broad front porch, and light-filled rooms with tall ceilings.

When we stopped driving eventually, our plan was to move into town, to walk to restaurants, and the theatre. We poured our hearts and souls and quite alot of equity into its renovation when we first bought it, giving its grandeur a second chance. We rented the house to mostly medical students and residents. It was like a “Grey’s Anatomy” house; one of the Bride’s roomies was actually named Meredith Gray, and more than a few weddings took place here.

It’s bittersweet to close this chapter of our lives.

But if Moses didn’t appear, if we didn’t leave Egypt, what would have happened to the Jewish people? If Jesus decided to leave Jerusalem, to not walk down the “Way of Grief,” what might Christianity look like today? There are always turning points in life, should you go or should you stay? The Clash said it perfectly!

We’ve been blessed with the best realtor, a woman who has become a friend over the years. Aly Moore I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for helping us navigate our way to this closing. I wonder what door will open to us next?    Altamont St 018FB

 

 

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A Serious Time

March 22, 2016 by mountainmornings

This morning I climbed the stairs to my aviary to write about the mating rituals of birds and how they compare to a Chinese internet dating site, and then I heard about Brussels.

Instead of listening to conjecture and panic about terrorism, Bob and I set off to the Miller Center in Charlottesville to listen to a taping of American Forum TV, to see what an ex-diplomat and policy advisor to presidents had to bring to the table.

His name buzzed in my head. I knew this man. A long, long time ago, when I was a Rumson-Fair Haven School Board member, I was given the honor to write about him from my friend Bobbie VanAnda (Hi Bobbie!!). We were creating a “Hall of Fame,” a wall near the cafeteria which would permanently show our current students the places our alums had traveled, the numerous avenues to success they walked to get there.

I was assigned Eric S Edelman, an ex-diplomat to Finland. Here is my copy:

Thirty years after his graduation from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, Eric Edelman was sworn in at the State Department as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Finland. Amidst friends and family on July 20, 1998, Mr. Edelman said that he hoped his parents would finally be convinced he did the right thing by not going to law school. On August 27, 1998, he presented his credentials to President Martti Ahtisaari in Helsinki.  http://www.rumsonfairhaven.org/about/hall-of-fame/2001-inductees/

I vaguely remember a phone call, and some research back in the day when the internet wasn’t easily available. I loved writing biographies. Many times I would write a “split-page” bio for the newspaper; digging out the qualities and eccentricities of someone who may not have been a celebrity, but may have been infamous nonetheless.

Edelman retired from the US Foreign Service in 2009, and is currently the Hertog Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. That’s a mouthful right?

Today he really didn’t say much about terrorism. It seems he is part of a Republican group that would like to deny Donald Trump the nomination. I know this type of Republican, very Christie Todd Whitman. Someone who is thoughtful, conservative and reasonable; they are a dying breed.

Edelman spent his time, unfortunately, delivering a critique of our President, saying that Obama has an “…ideological aversion to American power.” And that in his two terms in office, Obama tended to prioritize relations with our adversaries, and not with our allies. There was a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, even though it’s Tuesday. He is a bit hawkish, wishing we had been more aggressive in Syria from the start. Saying that our policy, or lack thereof,  has allowed “…a major region (the Mideast) to descend into disorder.”

Edelman’s interview will be on our PBS stations this weekend. http://millercenter.org/americanforum

Bob thought he drank the Kool-Aid of the GOP, I thought he was more of a Kissinger-era policy wonk. But I did connect with him afterwards, he told us he was a Democrat in the beginning. He said his parents sold their Fair Haven home in 1980, and that he’s never been back. I wonder if they moved to Florida. He said he’s not on any social media sites, which makes getting national security clearance so much easier!

I wonder if he can succeed at keeping the Donald out of the White House. These are serious times. Good Luck Mr Edelman, and Godspeed. Here is a picture of RFH High School.

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Being Brave

March 20, 2016 by mountainmornings

Last night, as part of the VA Festival of the Book, Bob and I attended a program at the Paramount Theatre; a gorgeous art-deco building that once had African Americans sitting in the balcony, a la To Kill a Mockingbird. We were there to hear Bryan Stevenson speak about his book, Just Mercy, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/books/review/just-mercy-by-bryan-stevenson.html?_r=0 …and about the injustice of the criminal justice system in our country.

Stevenson graduated from Harvard Law, lives modestly, and runs the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama. He has been called America’s Nelson Mandela, and last night I was a witness in a very spiritual way to his testimony.

The statistics tell only a fraction of the story, but they are a good place to start. In 1970 America imprisoned 300,000 of its citizens. Now it imprisons 2.3 million people. A quarter of a million children have been sent to adult American jails in that time, including 3,000 sentenced to life without parole. One in every three black male babies born today can expect to be incarcerated (for the white population it is one in 15). In some states, including Alabama, a criminal record means disenfranchisement for life. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/01/bryan-stevenson-americas-mandela

He said some pretty provocative things. For instance, he told us that today Germany is placing memorial stones at the places where Jews once lived; Stevenson would like to see us place stones under the trees where Blacks were lynched. The problem is that we have erased, or denied so much of our Jim Crow history, we just don’t even know where all these killings happened.

Did you know that in Alabama MLK day is officially recognized – probably because it is now a national holiday, mandated by law – and called  “Martin Luther King/Robert E Lee Day?” What if Germany decided to have a holiday and call it “Dietrich Bonhoeffer/Joseph Goebbels Day?” Think about that – a dissenting theologian and a Nazi general.

I have likened our privatized prison system to apartheid before, but Stevenson thinks we can actually change things. By changing our war on drug policy to a public health model, by not privatizing our prisons, by ending capital punishment and appointing, not electing judges…and more. I wasn’t taking notes like a good journalist, because I was actually listening to every word.

As a country, he said, we haven’t gone through a Civil Rights era “truth and reconciliation” period, like Rwanda and South Africa, as evidenced by the fight over the Confederate flag. Many Southern White people see that flag as a symbol of their heritage. All Black and Brown people see it as sign of bigotry and hate. We need to confront the awful truth of enslavement and institutionalized segregation and racism in order to heal as a country.

Listen carefully next week while the Charlottesville City Council fights to remove the statue of Robert E Lee in one of our most beautiful parks, Lee Park. “Robert E Lee never came to Charlottesville and was never part of our local history. This statue was erected for the sole purpose of celebrating the Confederacy and establishing the supremacy of its cause. It has no place in our community.”

Stevenson has gone into the belly of the beast in Alabama, and he is still fighting for social justice. How can we treat children as adults in our courts? He has to be “brave, brave, brave,” as King’s widow once told him.

“We will ultimately not be judged by our technology, we won’t be judged by our design, we won’t be judged by our intellect and reason. Ultimately, you judge the character of a society . . . by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated.”   Photo: Caleb Chancey-Tireless-advocate--Bryan-010

 

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Shortly

March 17, 2016 by mountainmornings

Very soon we’ll be heading home. No more rooster wake-up call, no more chocolate croissants to start the day. The Love Bug and I will be wishing on the same stars in different American cities.  

But this morning I’d rather make a gratitude list:

I’m thankful we’ve had no news from the states. 

We turned on International CNN once, and at first I was relieved not to hear a certain GOP name. Then it appeared North and South Korea were planning a nuclear holocaust so we switched it off and never did that again. 

I’m thankful to have had this time with my adult children and their loved ones. To slow down, to speak French, to jump in the waves. 

I’m thankful Bob can still drive the roller coaster roads on this island. 

As Easter and Passover loom into sight, I’m happy to believe in rebirth in the figurative sense. Vacations have a way of giving us another perspective on our lives. 

But just in case rebirth is less metaphorical, I’d like to return to this world as a pelican.  

 

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Jumping in Puddles by the Cemetery 

March 15, 2016 by mountainmornings

When it rains, children love to jump in puddles, our babies are no exception. They are cold rainwater seeking missiles. The only difference here is that the best puddles happen on the path to the best baby beach!

Past one of the most beautiful above ground cemeteries I’ve ever seen. 

Life can be like this sometimes. Pure joy on the edge of eternity. 

   
 

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A Good Day

March 12, 2016 by mountainmornings

We have coasted into island time. Our vacation is halfway over, or halfway under. And yesterday was a good day. 

We spent the morning at the beach with the little ones; and the afternoon in the pool with the big ones. And for dinner, the Rocker and Ms Cait prepared an exceptional meal. Shrimp with soup, salad and champagne! I should rename my son the Chef.

In the evening, the big ones went to the French movie on a tennis court. So we looked at the stars and counted our blessings, while the little ones dreamed under our handmade dream catcher. 

Can you tell I was once a camp counselor? 

This was a tiny break in the action, the Chef came to sit for a minute. I thought, once upon a time they were little ones on this island. Catching lizards and feeding turtles. And now, look. 

  

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