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Writing at its Best

July 22, 2015 by mountainmornings

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.”

image

Ms Bean finds the sun

Ernest Hemingway said this in his 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech, and I’ve got to say I agree with him. Sometimes I would write in the corner of my dining room, overlooking a river, if I stood on my tiptoes. The children were in school, and the house was quiet.

And now my favorite time to sit and think and type is in the morning, alone in my aviary with a mountain view.

But here’s the trouble today – my computer talks to me. It bleeps when some friend on Facebook took a Buzzfeed test. New emails keep scrolling across the top of my monitor – look look look “Food 52” has some new dish towels! Then there’s my cell – it dings when I get a text message.

That’s the worst. The text ding. It means I just might be getting a grandchild picture. There is no better distraction than seeing the Love Bug in her cowgirl boots before preschool. Or maybe it’s my Happy Baby asleep at the breast. That’s the best!

Wait, I forgot the landline and Grandma Ada. Hark, I hear those footsteps I know so well, clomping up the stairs – it’s Bob! He’s come to see what I’m up to in my study. He loves to lay on my lounge, look longingly out my window, and wax philosophical about the news of the day.

“Whatcha doing honey?” He says.

“Oh nothing, just writing sweetie.”

Let’s not forget Ms Bean. She’s doing her “there’s a car in the driveway” circle dance and furious bark downstairs. Maybe it’s the pest service truck, or FedEx? Or maybe it’s just the border collie Miko from the next farm over.

Yes, this is my lonely life. We live in the forest, in the shade of the Blue Ridge. And I miss my children and grandchildren like crazy, but if I could just get a little more quiet sometimes. Please.

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

One Giant Leap

July 21, 2015 by mountainmornings

Yesterday was the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and last night Bob and I watched the “Apollo Wives” documentary on PBS. It was a fascinating trip down memory lane for anyone old enough to remember where they were on July 20, 1969.

I was in a basement apartment in Cambridge, MA with a my roomie Alicia. My own wedding was on the horizon, and the moon landing was on a small black and white TV in the corner of our apartment. I remember feeling awed and wondering if the footage had been slowed down, because the effect of zero gravity didn’t translate to my brain.

Bob called me soon afterwards, to see if I had watched. There were no DVRs or recording devices to play back such a monumental moment in time. If you missed it, you’d have to wait for the next day’s evening news show. I had to remind Bob I was marrying someone else. I wonder if he remembers?

That August, Bob had to chase his own stardust at Woodstock:

The story of Woodstock, slice it how you will, is anti-Darwinian; nature suspended her processes of selection, and everyone more or less lovingly muddled through. Such menaces as there were seem to have been collective—the dodgy brown acid, the lack of sanitation, the rain that left concertgoers huddled under (packaged in?) sheets of clear plastic. When Sri Swami Satchidananda, ochre-robed, inaugurated the proceedings on August 15, he proclaimed the imminent oneness of everything: “America is becoming a whole!”  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/woodstock-nation/307611/

America became whole when a man landed on the moon, but we didn’t know much about the military/astronaut wives back in the day. The press paraded their pretty faces in the back pages of newspapers. The drinking, the Valium and the divorces were kept under wraps. It was a watershed year for women, do you go all “Stepford Wife” or do you continue your education and put off marriage? Burn your bra, or pull up your girdle and soldier on?

Well there was a little known woman, an MIT scientist, behind the design of the software that made that Apollo mission possible. Margaret Hamilton and her team wrote the code for the computer’s guidance system on board the rocket. When NASA thought they may have to abort the landing, she figured out the computer’s memory was being overloaded with too much inconsequential data – she taught them how to prioritize! Landing went to the top of the list – isn’t it ironic?!

And this was when computers used “core rope memory” which was woven in a laborious process by hand, by women in factories…hence the male engineers called these memory programs “LOL Memory.” And it wasn’t because it was humorous. LOL stood for “Little Old Ladies.” http://www.vox.com/2015/5/30/8689481/margaret-hamilton-apollo-software

So here’s to you Margaret Hamilton! For going where no woman had gone before. And here’s to every girl who takes a science or a math class and loves it! In Catholic school, and later in high school, I was never given that opportunity. It wasn’t until college that I discovered I loved science. Back in 1969, I thought my future was secure. I’d be the wife of a Harvard lawyer and create cocktail parties to beat the band. Luckily, I woke up.

Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton

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Feminist Food for Thought

July 16, 2015 by mountainmornings

Lately, I’ve been thinking about food. Is it theatre, is it purely sustenance, or is it love? This morning at daybreak I clicked on an article about “Gay Chefs” on Slate. I read the whole piece on my phone, which I will rarely do. It was an interesting historical take on how gay men never had anything to prove when they cooked. Unlike women, who were trying to prepare a home cooked meal for a family on a budget and satisfy a husband at the same time. And by the way, start working outside the home too if you don’t mind. Hence the invention of the crock pot!

The Gay community treated food like fun; they enjoyed entertaining at home because as a whole they were living a secret life. They loved Julia Child, and lovingly mocked her Queenish mannerisms.

Then the 80s hit and AIDS took its tool on such frivolity. With the beginning of cooking shows on TV, and finally a whole channel devoted to food, macho male chefs took over the airwaves. Spices were added to dishes by yelling “Bam!” and cooking wars became de rigeur. An Englishman yells at us, an Australian wants us to get healthy. If we saw a woman chef on TV, we were lucky to maybe get Nigella Lawson on BBC. Finally along came Ina Garten, a woman who looks normal and not quite goddess-like. She prepares good food, she’s the real deal! Plus, I must admit I like her approach. I just made her pesto before I left Cville.

Keep it fresh, keep it simple, keep it fun.

And now I’m watching “Chef’s Table” on Netflix while Baby Boy naps. http://decider.com/2015/05/09/chefs-table-netflix/ It’s exactly what we’ve been missing. Foodies everywhere must be rejoicing. A Japanese American woman, Niki Nakayama (LA, California) creates a truly Japanese restaurant that doesn’t serve sushi. There is a folding screen between her kitchen and her dining room because in her culture, women are not chefs. And she is mad about that, but also sensitive to her customers. She talks about her older brother telling her it probably won’t work out – which only made her more determined.

Certain doors were always closed to women, but bit by bite, we slowly opened them. Cooking should be done to please yourself, your own palate. And of course, I’m making the Love Bug Mac and Cheese tonight, from scratch. Just because.

This is what eating a fresh peach feels like!

This is what eating a fresh peach feels like!

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Health Care, Nuclear Deal, and now…

July 14, 2015 by mountainmornings

Criminal Justice?!

You’ve got to hand it to our President. My faith was renewed in him after I listened to that infamous Marc Moran podcast in the car, the one where Obama used the “N” word. What a kerfluffle that caused, but his point was lost; the fact that a huge ship like our American Democracy can’t make a 40 degree turn overnight. We’ve got to make slow, incremental change, maybe a 10 degree course correction.

Racism didn’t happen suddenly, and not saying one word, like taking down one flag, won’t fix the problem. But guess what?

“On Thursday, he is expected to become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison when he goes to the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution outside of Oklahoma City.” http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33515373

That’s right, President Obama has commuted 46 prisoners’ sentences, most were convicted of non-violent drug crimes. I’m sure you’ve heard how sentencing laws became a covert act of racism in the 80s and 90s. Many more people were incarcerated for selling crack cocaine as opposed to the powder variety. Yes, those traders on Wall Street just couldn’t be treated the same as residents in Harlem. When in reality, a drug is a drug, is a drug. And in fact, the whole approach to drug addiction needs to take an 80 degree turn toward health policy and away from criminality. During the Bride’s tenure at Duke, she helped a lawyer friend of ours bring a case against mandatory sentencing policies to court.

“These men and women were not hardened criminals. But the overwhelming majority had to be sentenced to at least 20 years,” Mr Obama said.
“But I believe that at its heart, America’s a nation of second chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second chance.”

It’s hard to believe that no sitting president has ever visited a prison. But this administration got the ball rolling when Attorney General Eric Holder dropped mandatory minimum sentences in 2013 for non-violent drug offenders.

So thank you Mr Obama. You’ve started this great ship of ours turning in the right direction. Now if it’s not asking too much, before you leave office, about our immigration policy…

Heading in the right direction

Heading in the right direction

Posted in BBC, criminal justice, Marc Moran, President Obama, racism, WTF | Leave a Comment »

Smoky Mountain Drive

July 12, 2015 by mountainmornings

Here we are again, on the road to Nashville. Trucks pulling into the left lane just as I approach another hill, Dollywood in the rearview mirror. And I know y’all are wondering what in God’s name is she listening to now, in that wilderness between Cville and Nville, what’s the latest podcast all the young’uns are tuning into?

While loading up the car this morning, the Bride called me to say I just HAD to download Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. She said that time would just fly by, and I had to listen to his interview with Terri Gross. Maron is a comedian, granted one I’d never heard of, but I love Terri Gross. Her voice could put me into a catatonic state, and I mean that in a good way. She is arguably one of the best interviewers on the planet; little did I know her life story would mimic mine in so many ways.

Terri is a bit younger. Hailing from Brooklyn, I had no idea she was Jewish. She graduated high school just two years after me, in 1968. But she dropped out for awhile to hitchhike across the country! Now I used to hitchhike up at Camp St Joseph in the Catskills, but to San Francisco for the summer of love? She talked about being on the forefront of the feminist movement; her first radio job was on a feminist radio station. She had a starter marriage too. She even tried teaching – check, check, check!

I found it interesting that she chose not to have children, because she felt she couldn’t accomplish her career goals. I vaguely remember those days; young feminists thought you couldn’t have it all, the fantastic career and a family. It was either one or the other. We thought children were our responsibility alone, that marriage was a construct with little chance of success. If we wanted the whole package, it was best to give up our dreams for awhile and work at supporting our spouse, Stay barefoot and pregnant, baking cookies. For alot of women, the dream deferred ended in divorce.

Remember that crack about cookies from Hillary? Not every woman had a Harvard law degree and nonstop childcare.

Listening to Terri talk, it took me back. My brother, sister and I were just on a conference call last Sunday talking about what our lives might have been like if our Father didn’t die in 1949, and our Mother wasn’t hit by a drunk driver later that summer. Would we all still be living in PA? Would Kay have been an early airline stewardess/lipstick feminist? Would Jim have become a psychologist? Would I have chosen to stay at home with my children, and write for a local newspaper? Would I have raised a daughter who thinks she CAN have it all? Or a son who wants nothing more than to make music?

Ms Cait and the Rocker sent me an interesting test to gauge my political persona and help me decide who I should vote for next year. I thought for sure I’d be a staunch Hillary supporter, but surprisingly my political leanings are toward Bernie! Now  Bernie Sanders is not even on my radar since he continues to sound like an NRA lobbyist; and even more than feminist issues, gun control in 2016 will be my litmus test. Still, if you have the time the test is fun – http://www.isidewith.com

And to find out more about Bernie’s life in the Green Mountains of Vermont – http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927.html#.VaGtoYuCaFI

Bob in the Blue Mountains

Bob in the Blue Mountains

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The Hat Trick

July 7, 2015 by mountainmornings

When the Rocker was two years old, we moved back to our home state of NJ. It was a tricky transition. I loved and still love New England. I love the kind and fiercely independent people; I love the weather, a little like the Emerald Isle; I loved Martha’s Vineyard in the Spring and Tanglewood in the Summer. And believe it or not, I loved the Winter. We would ice skate on frozen ponds and go cross country skiing out our back door, through a bird sanctuary. And the Fall foliage was like no other.

It’s true you can’t go home again, but I wanted to keep something of the Berkshires for my transplanted babies in NJ. Instead of driving to the Big Apple Circus in Lenox, we took the train to Lincoln Center. And instead of skating on a frozen pond, I signed the Rocker up for ice hockey when he could just barely carry his own equipment bag. I would sit and freeze at the Jersey Shore rink, watching him skate like he was born with blades on his feet.

That was the first time I heard of a “Hat Trick.” And for the rest of my days I thought it was a hockey term.

Until Sunday night. World Cup Soccer was the cap on a dismal Fourth of July weekend – my Fourths are almost always dismal – (Bob working the Fourth and our Year of Living Dangerously culminating on the Fourth with the Flapper’s car accident combine to make this holiday less lovely for obvious reasons).

Anyway, I was kvelling over Carli Llyod’s third blistering mid-court goal in the Women’s World Cup Soccer game, and I heard the term again. She had scored the first three goals in the first 16 minutes of the game! I missed the first one because I was feeding Ms Bean, but immediately caught the replay. Bob then returned home from the hospital to find me hopping around the living room, twirling my dish towel like a banshee!

The U.S. was the superior team through and through. Not content with four, it scored yet another goal — an easy finish by Tobin Heath in the 54th minute. It had had seven shots on goal to Japan’s four.

Much of the credit goes to the U.S. goalie, Hope Solo.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/football/womens-world-cup-final/

Before ice hockey, I was the Rocker’s pee wee soccer coach. I cut up the oranges before games and tried not to act like ALL the other male soccer coaches. Sometimes cruel, often not fair, and loud as only NJ coaches can be, I was the Yin to their Yang. Since I had to look up this complimentary Chinese philosophy, to make sure I was using the phrase correctly, I was amused to find the feminine form “Yin” is the negative force?! Huh? “Yin is negative, dark, and feminine, Yang positive, bright, and masculine. Their interaction is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it.”

Believe it or not, the term Hat Trick originated in 1858 by Brits playing Cricket, whenever someone got three wickets, whatever that means, they scored a Hat Trick. Fans would collect money to buy the champion Hat Tricker a new hat back in the day. http://mentalfloss.com/article/65863/where-does-soccer-term-hat-trick-come

Well ladies, my hat is off to you! To the Scarlet Knight from Rutgers, Carli – to the Huskie from U of Washington, Hope, – to the Gator from U of Florida, Abby. To the two UVA Cavs on the team, my heart has been officially won! And anyone with a little girl in love with soccer, here are the top colleges for future World Champions, and UVA is number 2! http://college.usatoday.com/2015/02/20/these-are-the-10-best-d1-womens-soccer-schools-in-the-u-s/

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Food Police?

July 2, 2015 by mountainmornings

When you see an obese child, what do you think? Do you immediately blame the parents, and/or poverty? There is no fresh produce to be found in their neighborhood, or maybe you think the parents are just lazy…What if we make school lunches more nutritious. Let’s get Jamie Oliver into every school cafeteria and teach those lunch ladies how to steam vegetables! Get a communal garden going outside the gym!

I find it fascinating that the GOP is all about getting government out of our way for free enterprise. They start yelling “fascist” whenever Mrs Obama wants to see kids get off the couch and move, or a school system tries to change what a school lunch may look like – don’t tell us parents what to do with our kids! Get government out of our lunch boxes!! We know what’s best for them, and if a parent wants to leave a gun lying around well…and then I picture a two year old yelling I WANT TO!!

Bob tells me he rarely mentions weight to one of his patients, after all he is not a family practitioner. But when he sees a severely obese child, he may say something to the parent in the ER. Because this is such a serious health risk, he risks that patient’s dismal satisfaction score. Not all doctors have the courage to tell a parent they are endangering their child’s health. Luckily, the rate of childhood obesity in this country is finally leveling off:

After a steady rise for many years, the number of calories American children take in each day is going down. Childhood obesity rates, though still too high, have now leveled off, and are starting to go down in some populations. The 5 billion school lunches served each year are more nutritious than they were a decade ago. Children are eating less processed food and drinking less sugar-sweetened beverages and full-fat milk.  http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/30/opinions/clinton-brown-healthy-kids/index.html

So yes, we can put juice in vending machines and model a healthier diet for our youngest children: by including them in food prep and offering fresh, real food; by sitting down to dinner as a family (an almost insurmountable task these days); by going to farmer’s markets or even helping them plant their own little tomato plant in a pot. I’ve mentioned my neighbor Kath the food blogger before. I love the way she has introduced real food to her toddler, he http://www.katheats.com/ways-motherhood-has-changed-me

Still, I think about how my Foster Mother Nell really didn’t cook, she would jokingly say she could open a can. Women in the 50s were sold that bill of goods – TV dinners on a tray, canned vegetables with marshmallows. Life was supposed to be “easy” for the 50s housefrau. They grew up watching their mothers actually grind meat on the dining room table, and wash clothes by churning them through a semi-automated washing machine, or maybe they were hauling clothes down to the creek? Why shouldn’t they get to vacuum in high heels!

And all I ever ate for lunch in high school was tuna sandwiches and potato chips, followed by a cheeseburger at White’s Drug Store immediately after school, with fries dipped in gravy… SO, canned food, semi-fast food, and I was never fat, in fact I made spaghetti for myself at night cause I thought I was too skinny! Those were the days, before babies, before menopause packed on the pounds.

We can all teach ourselves to prepare a healthier diet, we don’t need an RD to work up a meal plan. If there are no markets with fresh veggies in our neighborhood, we could plant some in pots. What we cannot and should not do for our kids is model complacency. What my generation had was the ability to walk to school, to go out on our bikes after school and not come home till twilight. We had the freedom to move, which this next generation may lack.

Kudos to the city planners and engineers who are redesigning parks and playgrounds all over the country. And bravo to the police who are walking beats and making neighborhoods safer and crime-free – not by stopping and frisking but by stopping and talking.

And maybe we could have a course at the police academy on nutrition?

Basil is ready for Pesto

Basil is ready for Pesto

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Mobility of Content

June 30, 2015 by mountainmornings

The first time I heard this phrase, “The mobility of content,” was yesterday while driving along the most glorious mountain views of Albemarle County. It was a sunroof-open-mobil moment on the good ole fashioned radio. I was listening to NPR and an interview with the creator of Netflix, talk about how they came up with the idea of original content. Most people think “House of Cards” was their first original pilot series. But no, Little Stevie’s “Lilyhammer” was being produced in Norway; they were six months in, when The Boss’ bestie cringed at the idea of releasing all of the Scandinavian mob-driven drama at once. Think of it like a record album, Steven Van Zandt was told, and so we begin.

While celebrating Ada’s 91st birthday, I grabbed her iPad and told her, “You’re gonna love this.” Ada has been a Marriage and Family Counselor for almost as long as I’ve known her. In fact, when she returned to school in the 60’s, thereby creating a role model for all young feminists in the NY/NJ metropolitan area, I had just started dating her son. “It’s about two couples, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin play the wives,” I crooned in her ear. I had just finished semi-binge watching “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix, a comedy about divorce loosely, and I wanted her to enjoy it as much as I had. https://www.netflix.com/title/80017537

Now I hate to get prejudicial, but for the most part I’d bet not many octogenarians+ know from streaming content. Ada is unique, in many ways, but her tech skills are particularly excellent. She gets her news online and in paper form, she shares photos and corresponds via email, although she prefers actual phone calls! She can Facetime with her Great Grandchildren in Nashville, and now I’ve got her on Netflix! We only watched two episodes of “Grace and Frankie” while I was there,  but I’ve got a feeling this woman who wrote her dissertation on humor in conflict, will become addicted in no time.

My guilty pleasure is watching “Bloodline” late at night when Bob’s working the evening shift. I’ve plowed through all the original content Netflix has to offer, “House of Cards,” “Orange is the New Black” and yes, I even started out long ago with “Lilyhammer” when we first got our Apple TV. I can watch Netflix on a plane, on a train, or even in the rain. I don’t like to watch on my phone however, even though “Lawrence of Arabia” has been watched on cell phones worldwide more than any other content. Imagine that.

But “Bloodline” is skeeving me out. It’s Shakespearian in its ethos, a family tragedy enfolding in the beautiful Florida Keys. If you want to see what drug/alcohol addiction is really like, how it can corrode character from the inside out, just watch Ben Mendelsohn play the “bad” brother Danny. And our Albemarle neighbor, Sissy Spacek, is compelling as the Rayburn family matriarch.

“Bloodline” is cleverly constructed, but a lot of the mystery hinges on Danny. Mr. Mendelsohn (who made his name in the United States in the Australian crime drama “Animal Kingdom”) is suitably inscrutable — his character is a quicksilver manipulator who can seem benign one second and malevolent the next. His good looks are bleached out by bad behavior, and only his smile, wryly sweet but fleeting, restores his boyhood charm. At his best, Danny seems well-meaning and misunderstood; at his worst, he looks a little like a middle-aged Robert Durst.     http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/arts/television/review-bloodline-on-netflix-depicts-a-family-with-nasty-secrets.html

Since we can carry our entertainment with us, wherever we go, and now not just with Netflix, but Amazon, Hulu, Google and even HBO will be streaming content, http://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/best-media-streaming-sites-services/ I wonder how this will change story telling. Or is a good story a universal thing of beauty, passed down in its oral tradition from generation to generation, since we could paint an image on a cave.

Scene From a Birthday

Scene From a Birthday

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Wow Whatta Week

June 27, 2015 by mountainmornings

Kinda makes up for that Supreme Court decision that gave Bush a second term, doesn’t it? Just when we think politics is all smoke and mirrors, something like this comes along, and renews my faith in our old republic. Confederate flags are coming down, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay, and love in all shapes, sizes and genders wins! To honor the SCOTUS decision on #MarriageEquality, Facebook friends turned their profiles into one long stream of colorful rainbows.

And an old friend posted this lovely sidebar:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/26/justice-scalia-suggests-asking-a-hippie-about-gay-marriage-heres-how-to-find-one-near-you/ It’s funny because the only person who still talks about Hippies in my life is Ada, and now it’s more of a funny, wistful look back at her life raising three sons in the 60s.

Leave it to Chief Justice Tony Scalia to make this analogy, and I’m trying to decipher his meaning here, about Justice Kennedy’s albeit sentimental ruling. We should just ask a “Hippie” what he thinks about the ‘freedom of intimacy” or in other words, in Scaliaworld of Hippie-past, we should all just have us some free love.

He first quoted the majority opinion, which said that “‘the nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” Then, he added, “Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage.” “Ask,” he added, “the nearest hippie.”

Well first of all Tony, I think that spirituality kinda means religion, for those of us not tied to a church. The Post article was so hysterical, I had to share it with my very own Hippie-in-Residence, Bob. His first response was that old Tony is “…an asshole.” His second response was, “Did you see where Hippies live?”

Oh yeah, The data Estately used to round-up their Hippies was based on these variables: “The number of communes and intentional communities per capita in each state, the number of food co-opers per capita in each state, the number of local Etsy stores per capita selling hemp, patchouli and tie-dye products; and the percentage of Facebook users who express interest in the Grateful Dead, Phish, cannabis, tie-dye, peace, LSD, Bob Dylan or hippies.” 

And of course, my Old Woodstock alum mentioned that Vermont was the number one state to find a Hippie! And it just so happens the Rocker will be playing the Friendly Gathering festival in Timber Ridge, Vermont tonight on the Wood Stage with The Parlor Mob http://www.frendlygathering.com/#about

So for all you reformed ex-Hippies, new-age Hipsters, and just plain folks looking to rock out hard, why not take a road trip to the Green Mountains and get your Mob on? http://www.parlormob.comparlor-mob

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Beyond Contempt

June 23, 2015 by mountainmornings

An interesting word, “contempt.” It implies dishonor, and three more D words – disdain, disgrace, and one may even result in being despised. It’s a strong word; if you should find yourself in contempt of court you may find yourself in jail. But contempt is a step beyond the worst case, like despair trumps depression. Which is why it was so contemptible for an Alabama Congressman to use such semantics on a radio show recently.

Republican Rep. Gary Palmer told a radio host he thought it was too soon to be calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from the SC memorial in front of the state house. He just kept clinging to his Southern tradition as he elaborated:          “…people that have an agenda seeking to exploit a tragedy…to me, that’s beyond contempt.”

Now granted, I’ve taken my time trying to exploit this particular tragedy, one in which a white supremacist zealot sat in on bible study in a black church in Charleston, SC for an hour, and then executed nine people in cold blood. When I saw the picture of that deranged 21 year old, my first thought was, “He’s crazy as a loon.” And news junkie that I am, I followed right along with the debate. Should this be called an act of terrorism, or a hate crime? And I think you know which side of the fence my sentiments were falling right? Because to me it’s no worse to kill someone in a house of worship than in their own house – or in a Kosher market or a movie theatre – or in a college or an elementary school.

Why has no one asked the important question over Father’s Day weekend? Why did the shooter’s father buy him a handgun for his 21st birthday?! Most parents can tell when their kid is going off track, and from all accounts this particular young man was sending out all kinds of clues. But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the mentally ill will always be with us, but how crazy are we Americans for not doing something about gun violence in this country! We had a legislator in this state who was attacked by his psychotic son, with a knife, because guns had been taken out of the home. Can we not agree on background checks at the very least? https://mountainmornings.net/2014/01/26/political-willpower/

A debate about the Confederate flag only serves to pollute the waters. Yes, I agree the Rebel flag belongs in a museum. I was semi-shocked to find it flying on houses in rural parts of the South still, but that involves private property and if I want to fly a cardinal flag outside my house I have that right. Do we fly a Nazi flag outside the Holocaust museum? A blogger I admire, who happens to be African American and Jewish, posted a comment online that the erosion of voting rights in the South should be our priority, and not where or what is on a flagpole. And I get it, I really do.

When our President must use the N word to make his point, and shrugs his shoulders to show he has little political leverage or will left to fight the gun lobby, well I just wanted to cry. That was after listening to the families of the #Charlestonshooting forgive the killer. What should we forgive him for exactly? I’m getting out my rosary beads, and this will be my prayer:

 “Forgive us Lord for letting this happen again and again and again”

CIIahHHUwAAuQWt

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