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Posts Tagged ‘Politics’

To Market

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2013| 1 Comment »

When it’s a glorious Fall weekend, with nights in the 50s and the high for the day is maybe 80, we will always meander our way off the mountain and down into the city, to mix and mingle at the Farmer’s Market, aka Cville City Market. College kids are back in town, and because it’s a big football weekend there are Ducks everywhere (Oregon), so it’s shoulder to shoulder energy.

Breakfast included a locally sourced bacon and egg sandwich with organic iced green tea. This is however a recipe for disaster with my visual field deficit courtesy of a West Nile mosquito. Because the sun was merciless, and live bluegrass music was everywhere, I wore my sun hat and therefore couldn’t see (or hear) anything to the right of me. Needless to say, I bumped into lots of friends and strangers!

What got to me this time was the abundance of heirloom tomatoes. I don’t think I could ever eat another supermarket tomato again. I moved here determined to stay true to the famous Garden State tomato. That and pizza. But it’s time to admit defeat, one out of two ain’t bad. The many-colored and zebra striped heirloom tomatoes in VA are simply divine.

Which leads me to a little riff on loyalty. I’m about as loyal as they come, like James Carville is to Bill Clinton. I still buy Tide and Dove soap. Which is why I’m keeping my options open about Syria. Yes, I’m a pacifist and I detest this run-up to war. You can’t bring about peace by surgically striking Damascus. If I were that opthalmologist-turned-dictator Assad, I’d get pretty darned pissed. But the mere fact that our President has changed his mind, and is asking the Congress to step up to the plate, gives me a measure of hope. This President who stood tall against the Iraq war. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on Tuesday night.

Because when Virginia’s own President Woodrow Wilson tried to prevent another world war with his League of Nations, he was on to something. And so the world waits for the UN Security Council to vote and for our elected officials to say Yea or Nay. Because Syrian violence is about loyalty – the succession of leadership by bloodline from Mohammed (Alawite a type of Shiite interpretation – 12% minority but ruling class of Muslims) vs a belief in succession by Mohammed’s most able and pious companions (Sunni – 70% of Syrian Muslims).

And btw, 90% of Muslims worldwide are Sunni! Imagine if Jesus had children, and so Christians split into 2 sects; the apostles and saints vs his progeny…instead of say how many? Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Congregational, Lutheran, Baptist….

According to Shiite Islam, Mohammed’s only true heir, imam, was his son-in-law Ali bin Abu Talib. But Alawites take a step further in the veneration of Imam Ali, allegedly investing him with divine attributes. Other specific elements such as the belief in divine incarnation, permissibility of alcohol, celebration of Christmas and Zoroastrian new year. http://middleeast.about.com/od/syria/tp/The-Difference-Between-Alawites-And-Sunnis-In-Syria.htm

Making the world safe for democracy, doesn’t seem to fit in this scenario…at least not without more bloodshed. And unlike my heirloom tomato tart recipe, I can’t envision the end game.

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A Day Late

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 29, 2013| 2 Comments »

One day after the anniversary of the 50th March on Washington for civil rights, I am struck by a few things.

At the foot of the greatest living Republican President, Lincoln not Reagan, not a single GOP legislator spoke. Sure we heard from three Democratic Presidents, but the Bush league was absent. Health problems, probably.

President William Jefferson Clinton said something that made me almost weep in my car. Since I was driving and not taking notes, it went something like this – “…how is it possible that in our great democracy it is easier to buy an assault weapon than it is to vote…”

And now, for all you cartographers out there, who were wondering if our country’s racial divide still exists in our now post-civil rights era. more fully integrated, land of the free….  Here is a little work of tremendous art, a Pointillism-type of a color-coded map of the USA.

Drawn from our 2010 Census of all 308.7 million Americans. Here is ONE dot per person In this racial profile:

  • White pixels are blue,
  • Black pixels are green
  • Asian pixels are red
  • Hispanic pixels are brown

So play around on the site. Big green dots in rural areas usually mean it’s a prison. Try and find where the blue and green dots intersect to make teal in your neighborhood. Who the heck needs those voter’s rights laws after all?

http://www.coopercenter.org/demographics/Racial-Dot-Map

Here is our weekly Cville’s map done around UVA by the Demographics & Workforce Group at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.

In Charlottesville, 10th Street Northwest shows up as a dividing line between mostly white Corner blocks and the almost all-black 10th and Page neighborhood, and the highest concentration of Asians surround UVA’s Darden School and medical center.

 

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On the Edge

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2013| 1 Comment »

We’ve all come to that point. A place where there’s no turning back, not enough fuel to land safely at home, but just enough to make it to the next destination. Some people may fold at this point, insist they could never get there, afraid of the unknown, so they’d rather take their chances swimming with sharks. Others may just hover, like Wiley Coyote over a canyon, in their mistaken belief system that the air will keep right on supporting their standing-in-place bodies.

But some keep going. The drums of war are beating once again.

Baghdad is suffering more violence today than it has in years – 1,057 killed last month alone, 50 killed by bombs in the last 24 hours…”More than 4,000 civilians have been killed and 10,000 more have been wounded so far this year, with Baghdad province worst hit.”

I am by no means a Mid-East scholar. But I do like to source my news, to hear all the stories surrounding an issue, to try and not make snap judgements. And that’s why I started reading alJazeera around the Egypt uprising; and I’ve even tuned in to their new American news network, channel 215 on Dish, these past few days.

Because I’d been unplugged in Nashville, and am returning to an inevitable “surgical strike” by our forces in Syria. And I learned that there have been around 20 instances of the use of chemical weapons within the country since the fighting began, which leads one to wonder why the West is responding now? Does a “red line” have to show videos of women and children dying? As one Arab scholar mentioned, “Killing is killing.” How very biblical.

And btw, Russia will veto any intervention proposed to The Security Council, because they think the horrendous attack in a suburb of Damascus on August 21st was actually caused by the rebels. And as I’m listening to alJazeera America, I’m thinking back to my favorite HBO  show of the moment, “Newsroom.”

This fictional newsroom ran a story about Serin gas, a story that proved to be false. And I thought about when the Bride was in Paris during her 2nd semester, about the Serin gas that was used in the 1995 Metro bombings.

And on this rainy morning, I’m really not sure who to believe. Certainly the Newsroom’s General Stomtonovich’s on-air “confession” was cooked by its producer, we saw him do it.

And now the UK has drafted a resolution  “…authorizing necessary measures to protect civilians in Syria.” And we are circling our battleships; the drums are drum drum drumming.

And I think back to the bill of goods we were sold about WMDs in Iraq. And it’s like our whole country has gone out to the edge, once again.

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A Gift Horse

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

What’s that old saying; “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?” Maybe you’re too young to have heard it, but it means be grateful for whatever someone hands you. In the days before Oprah was giving away cars, horses were the penultimate gift. And you wouldn’t want to imply that this horse was “long in the tooth,” ie getting on in years with one hoof in the glue factory. That would be tacky.

But what if you’re an elected official, like say the GOP Governor in our fair state of Virginia. And what if one of your biggest political donors, let’s say he owns a pretty big vitamin supplement company and his name is Jonnie Williams Sr., chief executive of Star Scientific, let’s just say Jonnie decides to give you and your family gifts worth over six figures?

The First Lady of VA gets a Rolex to give to her hubby, and then a $15,000 shopping spree in NYC at Bergdorf’s.

The First Daughter receives a $15,000 wedding catering gift, and a another $10,000 engagement gift goes to a different daughter.

Believe me, I know weddings can be expensive! We have 4 this year to attend, and thank goodness for online wedding registries. I wonder what would cost $10,000? That wooden salad bowl?

Last week, R-Gov Bob McDonnell released a written statement apologizing for the scandal and saying that he had repaid Williams for $120,000 in loans: $70,000 to a real estate company owned by the governor and his sister and $50,000 to first lady Maureen McDonnell. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/mcdonnell-daughter-repaid-15000-catering-gift/2013/07/31/58bb18ba-f9ea-11e2-9bde-7ddaa186b751_story.html

So while everyone has been focusing on the slimy, sexual antics of other political men, our Governor was hoping all this would just go away. But the tables have turned and Jonnie (whatever happened to the “H” in John?) is cooperating with federal investigators, which can only mean they are planning to prosecute McDonnell under the Hobbs Act which “…prohibits elected officials from taking money or other items of value in exchange for the performance of official duties.” http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/star-donor-assists-u-s-in-mcdonnell-probe/article_f8012a33-00b4-56b9-b9af-1901751965e3.html

Now I had to raise my hand and swear I’d never take any gifts while I was a member of the School Board in NJ. And I was never offered any, still…there was no ambiguity about it, none whatsoever. And when I covered Borough Council Meetings, members would recuse themselves from votes if they had the slightest interest in a business.  On every level of government this conflict of interest oath must stand if we want to rise above the banana republics of the world.

Such a slippery slope our Governor has been on, and his holier than thou wanna-be replacement Ken Cuccinelli, running for his seat in November, hasn’t uttered a peep. Maybe Gov Ultrasound, and his  AG Cuccinelli who would like to overturn Roe vs Wade – who sponsored the ‘choose life’ license plates and supports fake pregnancy centers – maybe these two just need to refocus their public policy on the economy.

Something is rotten in the state of Virginia! Quick, call the veterinary dentist.

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#LoveisLove

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2013| 5 Comments »

I’m in love with two women. There, I said it. One is a widow, 83 years old, who studied  mathematics and worked at IBM, and the other is a single mom, 50 years old, who graduated from Harvard law School.

Largely because of Edith Windsor, the Rosa Parks in the fight for Marriage Equality, our nation is one step closer to that goal. It is already the law in France, and now California will have to re-legalize same-sex marriage.  Can Virginia be far behind? Windsor is a feisty senior citizen, who got a bill in the mail from the IRS that made her mad.

“Plaintiff Edith Windsor is an 83 year old resident of New York, who legally married her same-sex partner of over 40 years, Thea, in Canada in 2007. The State of New York recognized their marriage, but the United States government did not. Sadly, Edith’s wife, Thea, died in 2009. When Thea died, her estate was forced to pay $363,000 in estate taxes that would not have been assessed if Thea and Edith were not a lesbian couple.”  http://www.marriageequality.org/Federal-cases-DOMA

In United States v Windsor, SCOTUS struck down DOMA as you’ve probably heard, saying that it was unconstitutional to discriminate against one group of people because of the gender of their partner in marriage. I particularly liked this phrase: “…(DOMA’s) effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.” Then they turned around and threw out Prop 8 in California! Well done SCOTUS!

I’m thinking of a second career as a wedding planner in San Francisco. Hey, I managed to make the magic happen on a mountain in an apple orchard! Well, with a lot of help.

The second woman I’m in love with this morning is Sen Wendy Davis of TX. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/26/who-is-wendy-davis/

Because I’m on the Twittisphere, I followed along in real time on her filibuster in pink sneakers. The NYT called her a “Fashion icon” on the Hill, but she is so much more than a pretty face. What guts, what glory! I could not stand for nearly 13 hours without a potty break. The GOP in the lone star state, those anti-choice politicians so affectionately called “Gynoticians” because of their untiring need to legislate a woman’s body, were trying to sneak in a crippling blow of TRAP bills that would have closed most of the Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. Go ahead you idiot Govenor, try to reconvene and pass those bills. I’m sure there will be people spilling out all over your state house. We women love our bodies enough to fight for them.

We usually know when and how we get pregnant. We know what a rape kit does and does not do. We don’t like to undergo unnecessary and unwanted vaginal probes anywhere and at any time. And yes, we usually know who we love right from the start. Our knees get weak and our hearts start racing, and before you know it we’ve got a ring on our finger – or a brooch –  as Edith and Thea had to hide their relationship. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/26/edith-windsor-thea-spyer-doma

The government may stop disparaging and injuring women now.

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Photo by Bless Bless Productions

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What’s in a Name?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on June 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

From Dictionary.com

Whistleblower: a person who informs on another or makes public disclosure of corruption or

wrongdoing.

Leaker: a disclosure of secret, especially official, information, as to the news

media, by an unnamed source.

What we end up calling Edward Snowden says alot about us. After watching a replay of Meet the Press, where David Gregory interviewed the Guardian reporter, Glenn Greenwald, who is responsible for Snowden’s stories about our government’s secret agency and its “broad overreach,” I was actually appalled to find them both at each other’s throats. Two grown men,

“To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Gregory asked with his best boyish grin.

Even though there was a slight satellite delay, Greenwald shot right back, calling him out on even suggesting, as one journalist to another, that they should be criminalized for doing their job! He explained that Snowden had offered his information to The Washington Post, before going to the UK…and he said he asked The Guardian to screen what they published – not to jeopardize our country’s security. Then, a few minutes later, Gregory read Greenwald’s further tongue lashing right out loud on Meet the Press, from a Twitter feed:

“Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?”

OK, so it’s now 4 am and I am not going back to bed!

That darn red cardinal is still slamming his body on my window, despite our attempt to make him feel like he was approaching a Smurf airfield.

photoThe sleep fairy has eluded me once more.

So Gregory said he’s not embracing anything, just asking the question that was “out there.” And Greenwald, who is also an attorney, further tweets about Gregory,  ‘does he publicly wonder if DC officials should be prosecuted for lying to Congress?’ And this morning Greenwald really gets the coffee flowing in my veins by Tweeting:

“It’s awful how Snowden is traveling through countries with no freedom! Now: back to our debate: should US journalists be arrested? #Sorkin

It’s like a Wimbledon match for journalism! IMHO, the best quote about my profession is, “The purpose of journalism is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” So here is a good wrap-up of this tele-computing exchange across the pond; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/23/david-gregory-whiffs-on-greenwald-question/

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling comfortably afflicted! And if you’d like to know how it all got started: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-profile

Once we start accusing, threatening (yes, even in a veiled way –  “to the extent that you have aided and abetted” – I love how one reporter compares that to asking the question with no good answer – “Have you stopped beating your wife?”…) and yes, maybe even arresting investigative journalists, we might just as well pack it in as a democracy.

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Imagine

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on June 8, 2013| 2 Comments »

Imagine a time when women were addressed by their husband’s name, Mrs Andrew Ford for example. Imagine a time when we couldn’t vote, or inherit property. I know, it’s hard for us to imagine all this, although when I went off to college I was not allowed to wear pants on the street or in any fine restaurant. We were not given a tie, like a man who might show up tie-less, and told we could now enter their dining establishment, we were just scooted out. Girls were dying or becoming infertile because this was before Roe vs Wade, and back-alley abortions were as common as…coat hangers. Our lives were less than, and then we changed all that.

And Maybe the exPresident of France married a model, and maybe President Xi Jinping of China married a pop singer. But our President married a no-nonsense lawyer. And good for Michelle, for not tolerating a heckler. Bravo! “I do not do this.” Haven’t we all wanted to shout that to the roof tops? I do not mop floors! I do not bake cookies! I do not join PTAs!! I know, I did all those things, but still… I remember when a cousin told me she just doesn’t cook, and I thought to myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Shame on you people who thought Michelle was acting like an “angry Black woman.” Here we go again, trying to restrain our evil womanly ways, and spinning it like it’s a racist thing. I was so happy she came out of her First Lady persona to call out a heckler, at a gay fundraiser. She went right up in her face, she got in her grille. And that’s just the way you want to fight, standing up for yourself, defending your right to be there, to speak your mind. So it’s fitting we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of a little known English Suffragette this month, Emily Davison.

At the 1913 Epsom Derby in Manchester, Emily threw herself into tho ring to place a Suffragette banner on the King’s horse, at full gallup. Good idea, bad execution, since 4 days later she died of her injuries.  An active, determined fighter for women’s voting rights, “She was frequently arrested for acts ranging from causing a public disturbance to burning post boxes and was sentenced to a month’s hard labour in Strangeways after throwing rocks at chancellor David Lloyd George’s carriage. During her sentence, she went on hunger strike and blockaded herself into her cell, leading prison staff to turn a hose on her and almost fill her room with water.”                                                   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-22826644

Today, it is hard to believe that we had to witness yet another panel of mostly military men (yes, there was 1 woman) sitting before Congress. And exploring the level of sexual assault in the services has reminded me of the Catholic Church looking into pedophilia and priests. The word clueless comes to mind. So, I’m asking our First Lady, a staunch supporter of the military, to step up; tell Congress and the Pentagon we don’t do this. American women are not only wearing pants in the street and in battle today, they are bringing home the bacon once they return in record numbers, and they are being treated as less than by their superior officers. Please sign this petition: https://www.thisispersonal.org942532_492383090840563_145442712_n  And Michelle, if you want to stay home for your daughter’s birthday this weekend, that’s fine by me!

 

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What’s the Story Morning Glory

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on June 6, 2013| 2 Comments »

“Hello Mrs Miller, this is Harvey Johnson can I speak to Debra Sue?” Did you hear about Hugo and Kim; did they really get pinned? And are you guessing where I’m going? No, Bob and I did not play in Bye Bye Birdie in high school, although come to think of it, that would have been swell. But after hearing about our government’s secret court order to direct Verizon, my cell carrier and virtually every family member and friend’s too, to turn over their metadata, not sometimes, but on an “ongoing basis,” I was flabbergasted. Or to use a more British term, since the Guardian broke the story, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order Gobsmacked!

OK, slowly but surely I realize that privacy is becoming so last year. Everybody is tweeting, linking in, texting and Facebooking their lives away in public. But at least you can decide which picture goes up on Facebook. Look at me, I’m blogging to you right now, but at least I’m in charge of what I’m saying. I control what can be seen, and try to keep some sense of privacy by referring to my kids with pseudonyms. Now, I’m assuming, the NSA knows how often and how long I talk with the Bride. And who I’m voting for on The Voice!  BL5Da16CQAAqdjZ.jpg-large

Now you know too. I love The Voice, I admit it, send me to Gitmo.

Remember when I told you how our little town was the first in the country to outright ban the use of drones? Well that brave measure came from Charlottesville’s Rutherford Institute,  a nonprofit organization “…dedicated to the defense of civil liberties and human rights.” It seems fitting that Mr Jefferson’s Village would host such an organization. And the Rutherford’s director, constitutional law attorney John W Whitehead, recently wrote a book that has a few tongues wagging. A Government of Wolves posits we are fast becoming a police state – think about the overused and possibly racist “stop and frisk” programs in big cities, and think about when the city of Boston was put on a lockdown after the Marathon bombing.

The book “…paints a chilling portrait of a nation in the final stages of transformation into a police state, complete with surveillance cameras, drug-sniffing dogs, SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, blood draws at DUI checkpoints, mosquito drones, tasers, privatized prisons, GPS tracking devices, zero tolerance policies, overcriminalization, and free speech zones.”   https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/nprs_all_things_considered_weekend_edition_spotlights_constitutional_attorn

And this week SCOTUS rules in Maryland V King that the police can take your DNA just for being arrested! Secretly investigating newspaper reporters for possible security leaks is one thing, but as one intrepid news anchor named Roaseane Roaseannadanna used to say,  “Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it’s always something–if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.” Or as Former Vice-President Al Gore said in a tweet: “In a digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22793851

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What’s in a Purse?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2013| 4 Comments »

In “Purse Politics; Tote and Vote,” the NYTimes thought it might be fun to do a puff piece on what women Senate and Congress members carry with them all the time. And thanks to Jezebel, I found it! Sen Claire MacCaskill said, “I think most of us, while we may look at the cute little purses, our lives don’t fit in a cute little purse. Our lives fit something that is in between a purse and a briefcase, and that’s what I carry.” http://jezebel.com/new-york-times-profiles-powerful-congresswomen-and-thei-511022241

Right, something in between, like a big purse…a tote maybe. In 2013 we have a record number of women on The Hill, 20 in the Senate and 81 in the House, and all we want to know about are the things they carry? iPads and phones, chap sticks and wallets? This article led to a bit of stream of consciousness for me, so follow along if possible.

A book on my teenage children’s summer reading list was, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. It just so happens their English teacher Mr Shea was a friend of the author, and this book has been coined the next best thing to Hemingway in writing fiction about war. It won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger. Unlike lady senators, soldiers in the Vietnam War carried mosquito netting, writing paper, letters from home and tarps to keep the jungle at bay; “For the most part they carried themselves with dignity.”

And I started to think about the things I carry around hither and yon. The damnable iPhone leaves me feeling rudderless should I forget it, and because of my shoulder problem, I’ve switched to a smaller summer purse. I sling it cross-body like a bandolier setting forth to do battle every day with life in the country. Keys, check! Water, absolutely! Wallet is a must have, along with all those plastic cards that let retailers know all my personal information. I’m holding out at Panerra Bread, why do you need one of their cards, really?

When I was working for a newspaper, I always had a small notebook and pencil with me, very old school Lois Lane. Now, I just send myself a text on my phone if I need to remember something. And my text said “WWII and sex.” I’d been listening to NPR’s “All Things Considered” about our GIs and prostitutes in Normandy around the end of the war. Mary Louise Roberts wrote her non-fiction book titled, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France, to bring some attention to some of the lesser known evils of war; like the rise of VD in our troops and the increase in African American soldiers charged and promptly hanged for rape in Le Havre.  http://www.npr.org/2013/05/31/187350487/sex-overseas-what-soldiers-do-complicates-wwii-history

Soldiers to senators, writers to doctors, we all carry a microcosm of meaning with us every day. Diaper bags are toted everywhere with new moms and dads, and they always have less to carry with the second and third child. Still I’d rather read a book about what lady legislators actually do, and how their approach to politics may differ from their male colleagues. What kinds of policy are they willing to compromise on, when do they stand and fight for a bill. Are they cookie-cutter voters with their party mates? Do they bring in cookies for their aides? Are they furious with the GOP for trying to repeal Obamacare for the 36th time? Is a woman fundamentally different in building consensus?

Because in the end, it’s not about what we carry, it’s about what we do with it once we get there. Let’s see; can you guess who is the DC lawyer, the San Francisco businesswoman, the Chicago child psychologist and the Nashville ER doctor?

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Care to Camo

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 25, 2013| 2 Comments »

It’s a weekend for sales. It’s a weekend for barbeque. And it’s a weekend to remember our fallen soldiers; only this time instead of waxing on about our military might, and the bravery exhibited by countless men and women in uniform, I thought I’d take a different tack.

I have to say I’m a bit embarrassed by: 1)  the crop of sexual harassment charges popping up in all forms; 2)  I’m super-shocked at the continuing hunger strike that is going on at Gitmo. But now I have to think that the pint-sized para-militray operation known as the Boy Scouts of America is taking one tiny step in the right direction. So it came as a bit of a shock to read that 3) Justice Antonin Scalia, a weekend scout leader for decades, has resigned!

“Some of the happiest memories of my adult life have been as a scoutmaster. Huddling under blankets around the campfire, and so forth. But now, all of that has been ruined.Ruined.” http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/05/scalia-resigns-post-as-scoutmaster.html

Let me be clear. I always wanted to be a Brownie. My foster mom didn’t drive, so it was a given that I couldn’t join those coveted ranks and wear that precious uniform with the beauty pageant-like ribbon decorating my chest. I had to sit in sacred Heart Church, in the noxious maroon uniform of Catholic school girls everywhere, bow-tied tight, and just watch as the Brownie troop entered, marching in time, stage to the right of Mary Mother of God. It was unnerving.

And except for finding out that the youngest little Girl Scouts now have a troop called “Princesses” in Cville, I’m delighted to find out that this largest of all organizations dedicated to All-Things-Girl has always had an all-inclusive policy when it comes to their members’ sexuality:  “Girl Scouts of the USA and its local councils and troops value diversity and inclusiveness and do not discriminate or recruit on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, national origin, or physical or developmental disability,” reads a statement on the organization’s blog. http://www.advocate.com/youth/2012/12/19/3-big-differences-boy-scouts-versus-girl-scouts

Hurray for Girl Power! Now, I’m not sure about that SCOTUS article, since it did seem rather tongue in cheek. But if Scalia did resign, well that is his right. I personally, on this chilly May morning, couldn’t imagine cuddling with him around any campfire, ever!

Thank you President Obama for having the courage to send out the message that this war on terror is not sustainable. That our military needs to be focusing on other things, and that terrorists throughout the world are better caught by intelligent spying and good old fashioned police work. Self-radicalizing nut jobs are becoming much more of an issue world-wide. If a soldier can be hacked to death in broad daylight in a London suburb, why did it not surprise me that a woman, who is a cub scout leader, talked him out of killing anyone else? She said it was better her, than her child who was on the bus with her. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329236/Woolwich-attack–Moment-heroic-woman-tries-remonstrate-knife-wielding-soldier-killer-police-arrived-scene.html

Now that’s what I call courage.

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