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Posts Tagged ‘Politics’

A Rape is a Rape

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on January 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

My news sabbatical is over. While nursing this cold I’ve taken to watching CNN in the morning with my oatmeal, tylenol and Vicks scented tissues. And somehow I thought that maybe everything on a Facebook news feed wasn’t necessarily true. Yet there it was, a story I’d merely glanced at online because it made my stomache churn, was now being reported as fact on morning TV: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/04/justice/ohio-rape-online-video/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

This story hits all the wrong notes – the high school football team of Steubenville, Ohio is somehow implicated in a gang rape of an unconscious 16 year old girl. Two 16 year old football players are identified and charged with rape, but the real question is was the town and its police force trying to cover this up since it happened in August? And what sets this rape apart from any other is the evidence; it’s not just he said, she said. A hacking activist group called Anonymous has posted video of a drunken boy boasting about the crime, along with pictures of the girl…which is why I saw it online before national media picked it up.

Now juxtapose these two images: CNN reporters interviewing Steubenville shopkeepers about how we mustn’t judge the whole town by the actions of a few, with the protests from India. A 23 year old medical student died after being brutally gang raped on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th. There have been daily protests in the streets since that day calling for justice and the men to be hanged. Five, possibly six men have been charged with “… murder, kidnapping and rape… voluntarily causing harm during a robbery, armed robbery with murder, and destruction of evidence.” http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/03/world/asia/india-rape-case/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

I know our legislators have much to do after their first day back on the Hill. They must keep kicking the can down the road of fiscal temerity; they must agree with some form of realistic gun control; they have to pass a budget, and oh BTW, thanks for that last minute Super Storm Sandy pass…on the heels of your humiliating first vote. And it saddens me that Congress could not reauthorize the 2012 version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). It seems the GOP balked when language was added to include “…expanded provisions to protect victims even if they’re gay, illegal immigrants or Native Americans living in tribal jurisdictions.” Rumor has it that R-VA Eric Cantor balked at the LGBT provisions, but a rape is a rape is a rape, no matter who you are or where you live. I am hopeful that the increasing number of women in the new 113th Congress can make this happen.
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Slow Knitting

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on December 23, 2012| 6 Comments »

While I was searching for some old pictures, I pulled down a big Frye boot box from the top of my closet. Inside I discovered the purple sweater that my Nana knit, probably around the turn of the last century. It was chock full of cables, an Aryan style, and since I knew it was a tight fit at 16, almost six decades later I didn’t have to try it on. I want to give it to the Bride; and I want to teach the Love Bug how to knit like a laidback knitter when she gets older!

Yesterday I walked into the Haus of Yarn in search of a certain size needle and walked out with this book, “10 Secrets of the Laidback Knitters, A Guide to Holistic Knitting, Yarn and Life,” by Vicki Stiefel and Lisa Souza. Post Christmas sales were in the air, (as in, “Come back on Wednesday when everything is half off”) and a woman was delivering a big box from Nothing Bundt Cakes, http://www.nothingbundtcakes.com I love this knitting store, they had fudge in the back and invited me to their Thursday night knit club. Back to the book, there are all different kinds of knitters, on a spectrum from the up-tight anxious type seeking perfection all the way to someone who knits in a recliner and doesn’t mind a dropped stitch.

I have to admit, I don’t like making mistakes, but I’m aware that what I want to be is a laidback knitter. And now I know how! I may never do any spinning or roving, but I do know where most of the yarn I use comes from. And I can still walk down the road to the Rivanna River Alpaca farm and say “Hey” to my friend DeeDee. Her animals make the softest fiber in the world. Thanks to The Knitting Lady, I don’t fear dropping stitches or even ripping out rows of wool with abandon. I can say with satisfaction, I am the slowest knitter ever! “Slow” in the sense of the slow food movement; and to be fair, in the sense of time spent on a project…

Have a slow moving Sunday y’all. As our President said, “Drink some eggnog.” I’m working on a rosy pink dress for my little Bout de Chou – translation “tiny piece of cauliflower!” I intend to keep knitting…and writing about gun control, in light of the tone deaf statements of the NRA. Let’s bring our voices to Washington via petitions, phone calls and those really hard to ignore, snail mail letters. Slow and steady will win this race.
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If Not Now, When?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on December 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?”

But I don’t want to know his name
Or that he wore combat armour
That he lived with his mother
Or they seemed like a normal family

I don’t want to know the number
The size or make of the guns
Or that there will be 20 brighter
Stars in heaven this Christmas

I don’t want to know “Why”
What motivated a man to
Wake up one morning and
Cowardly mow down children

Because it doesn’t matter
All that doesn’t begin to explain
The unexplainable or to stem
The tide of grief and anguish
Still to come in this nightmare

What matters is that we
Wake Up
And take a collective sigh
And make gun violence a priority

“And if I am only for myself, then what am I?”
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-address-issue-gun-control-through-introduction-legislation-congress/2tgcXzQC
“The signatures on this petition represent a collective demand for a bipartisan discussion resulting in a set of laws that regulates how a citizen obtains a gun.”

Our society will always have mentally ill people; they will go to a classroom at VA Tech or Columbine High School, they will walk into a shopping mall or a movie theatre. They will get into a taxi, then stroll into a parking lot and shoot a congresswoman. I must be crazy to think that the overwhelming factor in this national carnage isn’t the shooter – so let’s lock all our doors and live in fear, and btw let’s arm ourselves?

NO, the problem is GUNS…the abundance of guns in our country and their easy access. The United States loses 87 people a day to gun violence. Yesterday we lost 27 people in a small New England town, including the shooter and his mother. Let’s not play the blame game, and ask how he got into the school, or if somebody heard his threats. Without those guns in his hands, he would have injured his mother, with a knife or a heavy object or his own hands, and maybe, just maybe that would have been all? We place second in the world to gun ownership per citizen, next to Yemen.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/20/gun-violence.html

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” Rabbi Hillel
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Pro Worker or Pro Union?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on December 11, 2012| 2 Comments »

Call me crazy, but I’m a little befuddled by the “Right-to-Work” movement. Union members are swarming over the Michigan State House, protesting the bills that were introduced during a lame duck session last week seeking to strip unions of their power. “Proponents say the measure would bring more jobs and economic benefits to Michigan, while opponents say the laws are designed to weaken unions and would lead to lower wages.” The Governor said to BBC news, “This is about being pro-worker.”

If passed, Michigan would become the 24th Right-to-Work state. My Great Grandmother helped to unionize coal mines in PA, after losing one husband after another to mine accidents. I understand their historic significance. I also believe that police and firefighters will not have a choice in Michigan today, they will continue to belong to their unions. I guess legislators don’t want to take on those union members. Two school districts have closed around Lansing in order for their teachers to be present at the vote later today.

I’ve had two close and personal encounters with unions. One when I was teaching pre-school at a Head Start program in Jersey City. Some heavy playground equipment was delivered early one morning when I was taking the 6 am shift, alone for an hour. The trucker said he could not help me get the equipment off the truck! That wasn’t his job. So we had to wait around until more teachers and aides showed up so we could gingerly unload the boxes. It was an “Aha” moment for me. The second time was before I started student teaching, I was unaware that I would automatically be signed up for the teacher’s union.

And that seemed wrong to 20+ me then, that I didn’t have the choice. Most likely I would have joined. But I also felt that if teachers’ wanted to gain respect and higher wages, if they wanted their jobs to be viewed as a “profession,” then wouldn’t a union be unnecessary? It’s a conundrum, supposedly the union keeps the superintendents from filling jobs with his cronies, but it also tends to keep incompetent teachers in the classroom.

The President has said that Right-to-Work bills are about giving you the right to work for less money. I tend to agree. So many of our manufacturing jobs have shipped overseas because of the cost of doing business in this country. We no longer employ children, our sweat shops have closed and unions help American garment workers earn a living wage; which is why Walmart has its clothes made in China, or Indonesia, or Vietnam.

I would always include a gift of Lenox fine china when I sent a gift overseas, because it was made in Trenton, NJ. No longer, after many mergers and acquisitions even Lenox is made in China.

But wait, there is one Lenox plant left in the states – in Kinston, NC. A Right-to-Work state.
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More Balloons

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2012| 7 Comments »

This morning Ms Bean started barking again. I looked out for deer, but looked up to find another hot air balloon coasting down the ridgeline. Good girl! Her ruff was up, and she pranced around the deck protecting us from that big monstrosity. I wonder what she’s thinking. We’ve had a number of them now, it’s not like she hasn’t seen one before in her almost 3 years on this planet mountain. They are all brightly colored, and they all make a strange noise when the flame appears in the sky.

I was surprised to find that the Facebook site I mentioned in the last post turned political rather quickly. The woman who wants to be able to drive legally in Saudi Arabia sent her sympathies to the Muslim women and children in Gaza. I almost chimed in, but restraint and common sense took hold and I held my fingers in check. There is no use arguing with people who think they know God’s will. I’ve begun the hard work of deleting “friends” from Facebook; I have no use for their racist and Nazi/quoting/end/of/the/world pronouncements about our election. As flawed as our democracy is, it’s all we’ve got.

We’re packing for our Big Chill Thanksgiving, in FL this year. These are our true friends, people we’ve known since we were teens. Smart people. There are 2 new grandbabies to introduce to the group, and another engagement to celebrate. I’m going to ask them to sign up for “Global Zero.” http://www.globalzero.org And you may want to check it out too…it’s a movement that asks the world to rethink our nuclear strategy, to “help seize a historic chance to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.” Call me crazy, but sometimes I think we might all want to choose peace.

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The Art of Driving in the Sand

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

I’ve had enough of the General failures – old men and their sexual peccadillos. Hamas and Gaza are in the news this morning. Could the fragile MidEast peace crumble; what would it look like, to have Israel and Palestine peacefully co-exist? I’m becoming more and more of a pacifist, deploring war of any kind and for any reason. I’ve followed the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt via Facebook. But yesterday comments turned ugly, anti-semitic diatribes quoting wikipedia articles about which tribe actually owns their sacred land. Luckily, this morning by way of an Atlantic article, I found a different Facebook page, “Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself.”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Teach-me-how-to-drive-so-I-can-protect-myself/132205866854879?ref=ts&fref=ts

A 32 year old IT consultant, Manal al-Sharif, started this page after deciding she should be able to drive a car around her home country of Saudi Arabia. She posted a video of herself ranting away while driving about the utter ridiculousness of this ban on women drivers. She was arrested, then released. Her Facebook page had 12,000 fans, and now it has 8,019 – hmmm, I wonder who’s been censoring her readership? Although well educated women in Saudi Arabia are not finding any jobs, simply because of their gender, female lawyers have recently been allowed to practice in the kingdom. Change is coming, just not fast enough for some.

Saudi Princess opens up about women’s rights in her country

Here is a video about the freedom project in the Arab world. It is poignant, it is timely and it asks us to think about what choices we might have if we were born in Japan, or Mexico. The arbitrary nature of life on earth; we sometimes forget how our opinions have been formed over years of culture and family like a smooth stone. When old men send the young to war, over boundaries, over religion, over oil, what if we were all to stand strong and say, “No.” This is the existential crisis of our time. We women need to drive that conversation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q13CLScnm0A

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Leadership vs Followship

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012| 1 Comment »

What are the qualities of leadership? Are true leaders born, or are they made? I was listening intently to Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham at Monticello this past weekend. He was launching his latest 500 page book, “Thomas Jefferson the Art of Power.” The third President, I learned, was a master at seduction. He had dinner parties at his home here in Charlottesville, and at the nation’s new White House; however he would invite only members of the same party. He didn’t like argument in his private life, but in this way he made friends of his political enemies – maybe the first colonial frenemies? Jefferson was the master of mutual concessions; he managed to win over Federalists by the pure force of his personality. He knew how to build compromise and encourage coalitions. In fact, Meacham likened him to Bill Clinton. One of very few presidents who could not only maneuver politically, but could govern while also thinking philosophically.

“…but every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principles. We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists.”

Who does that remind you of? We are not blue states and red states? Always paranoid about the British returning, which of course they did, Jefferson practiced the politics of optimism. And optimism, I believe, is something you are born with. He knew that politics is inherently contentious, yet he dared to depart from the dogma of his party. Is there one Republican member of the house today who might dare vote to increase taxes?

The Greek tragedy of General David Petraeus’ resignation was unfolding while we listened to Meacham, and to his credit, he never mentioned it. But I couldn’t help think of the juxtaposition; how Jefferson’s legacy has been tainted by his relationship with the enslaved Sally Hemings. Petraeus’ reputation, some might say, was a great veil that the Pentagon wanted to protect because we Americans like to think he helped to “win” the war in Iraq. However, after reading this Atlantic article, titled “General Failure” by Thomas E Hicks,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-failure/309148/ …we learn how widespread the failure in our military leadership truly is, and why those two wars (one that was sold to us by lying about nuclear weapons) were doomed from the start. Hicks barely mentions Petraeus, only to say he came in near the end and helped to arm the Iraqi army, thereby inciting more civil war. The General who threw it all away over a woman 20 years his junior, it turns out, was flawed like the rest of us.

Meacham said of Jefferson, “If flawed people can do the good work he did, then maybe we can too.”

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Words Will Never Hurt?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 8, 2012| 4 Comments »

I’ve been on the road. Listening to Maeve Binchy and avoiding trucks in the Smoky Mountains that for some reason like to pull into the left lane to pass other trucks, very slowly. And so I missed alot of the Monday Wednesday morning political quarterbacking. And since I was driving, I couldn’t just whip out my camera, or phone, to take a picture of a very disturbing billboard. It was red, white and blue, very tasteful looking, and in big letters it said, “Obama and America.” So at first I was drawn in, it made me look to the left and take my eyes off the road for a second or two between Nashville and Knoxville. In slightly smaller letters it said something like, “Cannot exist together.”

When I was telling Bob about it, I got more and more agitated. It felt traitorous to me. When Bush was President, did that thought ever even occur to you? That it’s either one or the other? I know we have free speech in this country, but inciting a riot, or worse – is illegal – it’s a misdemeanor or even a felony. It’s not just speech, but urging others to do so is sufficient. “Nor is it necessary that the “incitement” actually cause these other people to riot, commit violence or burn or destroy. All that’s necessary is that the accused was trying to instigate these things.” Which is why the hate speech of the Republican Right in the aftermath of this election is so frightening.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/omg-in-charlotte-an-anti-obama-billboard/261963/

So thanks Nate Silver for your predictions, thanks for nailing it! http://www.salon.com/2012/11/07/nate_silver_nails_it/ Since I am still on baby time mixed with daylight savings, I stayed up late to watch him on Jon Stewart. I needed that comic relief from road buzz. Now can we please get back to governing? The people have spoken. Keep your paws off women’s bodies; keep your religious ideology to yourself. Math and science win in the modern world. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com

This is what the Dalai Lama had to say on his Facebook page today: “When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighbouring communities and so on. When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to de­velop inner happiness and peace.” So scale back your language GOP, America is evolving and your party will be left in the dust if you can’t adapt. We will never be Denmark.

Good Morning Mountains. Good Morning Ms Bean. Good Morning Home. I miss you Love Bug.

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Vote

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on November 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Pro-Life and Pro-Gun is an oxymoron

Lots of early voting has been going on, lots of absentee ballots. Tomorrow is the day, and I don’t believe the polls. Only one third of cell phone-only owners were called; and who only owns smart phones and can do without land lines? Right, young people. I don’t know anyone under 40 who uses a land line. No one.

But if you didn’t vote early, know your rights tomorrow. I’m in TN with the Bride who already voted early. She said the Latino man in line in front of her was denied the right to vote because he didn’t have the necessary photo ID. In TN, you can show your concealed hand gun permit in order to vote, but not your student ID. You can show your gun permit, even if it has expired!

Let’s get out the vote people. If you believe that legislators have no goddamn business trying to eradicate Roe vs Wade; if you believe that religious ideology has no place in our public policy; if you believe that health care is a fundamental human right – then you better get out there tomorrow and pull that lever. or touch that screen.

If your normal polling place is out of power, then find out where you can vote. We do need to take back our country, we need to overturn Citizens United and give it back to the people. I, for one, do not want to go back to the 50s. Let’s go forward.

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Are We Happy Yet?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 23, 2012| 4 Comments »

I live down mountain from the President who first proposed we Americans should be happy. TJ actually penned it right there, in our Declaration of Independence, that we must feel free to pursue happiness. There are just 2 problems – he didn’t define happiness, and we didn’t start measuring it until 1972. And strangely enough, we Americans seem to maintain the same score on this scale no matter what party our President belongs to, only about one third of the nation is “extremely happy.” http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/america-the-anxious/

Why so glum? Well last night this word nerd was impressed with how many times Mitt used the word “tumult.” I felt like I had fallen into a time warp, even the President had to remind him that the Cold War was over 20 years ago and this isn’t a game of Battleship! Tumult is a word from the last century. Sure these are tumultuous times, Arab Springs are quickly getting frosty. The Islamic world is more dangerous now than anytime in recent history, and electing a guy who seems to auto-correct his platform on foreign policy would be more like “malarkey” to me.

One thing that will always make me happy is going to the movies. In another instance of art imitating life, we saw Ben Affleck in “Argo” over the weekend. It was brilliant, right down to the set and feel of 1979. The juxtaposition of the actual photos next to the movie stills from the Iranian Revolution at the end only added to the power of the film. The attack on our Embassy in Benghazi is still fresh in our minds, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/timeline-of-events-comments-surrounding-attack-that-killed-4-americans-in-benghazi-libya/2012/10/20/ef5addbe-1a89-11e2-ad4a-e5a958b60a1e_story.html and only added to the terror of watching angry actors in Argo scaling the walls of our Embassy in Tehran.

When we walked out of the movie theatre, Bob turned to me and said, “If our involvement in that rescue mission had been made public, Jimmy Carter would have been re-elected.”  Interested in researching the 444 day occupation of our Embassy? http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/hostages.phtml It was fascinating last night to see Mitt’s newer, softer approach to Libya. Maybe he realized that trying to win political points in the midst of a national crisis is not very Commander in Chief-like.

The Bride was barely eight weeks old when the Iranian hostage Crisis began. We only got one channel on TV late at night in the Berkshires, and there was no internet at the time; the newspaper was our window to the world. My memory was filtered through a new mother’s eyes. I remember being sad when Carter was defeated. Like McGovern, he was a man you could trust, a man of peace. I like to think we are a people who can learn from history. And since the Arab world is in such flux, now more than ever, we need to keep our respected world leader in the White House.

For a little comic relief, to improve your level of happiness for the morning, why not follow-up on Gov Mitt’s auto-correctness? http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/category/best-of-dyac/

And don’t forget to vote! 

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