Top Ten Surprises of the Brennan Hearings

Juan Cole makes some excellent observations on the Brennan Hearings in Informed Comment. I especially like the last line about the Drone policy:

The entire thing is a definitional, constitutional and legal mess, and Obama should end it all before going out of office.

Remember the Election?

Just what was it we were arguing about? All those months, all those dollars and marches and phone calls and letters.... I don't think it was about electing a president who would cut social security & medicare, close down USPS deliveries on Saturday, or allow/devise this extralegal, unconstitutional DRONE b.s. What's going on with that? And I thought we made it clear to the Repugs that their ideas are NOT what we want. 1984, anyone?

What Next?

Thanks, Greenpeace, for taking on this.

Signs of Getting Older.....

If it doesn't hurt, it itches.....

Getting along without....the Super Bowl??

So the Super Bowl (via the 49ers) is rolling out the old homophobia, eh?  Let's boycott it.  Just don't watch.  (Go, Ravens!!)

I'm only too happy to add the SB to my list of boycotts--places I don't even miss now that I've crossed them off my list of places to spend my money.

Denny's (my first, for their treatment of black patrons);

Target (next, for the CEO's contributions to right-wing political candidates in MN--hey!  This is Minnesota we're talking about!!  Home of Sen. Eugene McCarthy and VP Hubert H. Humphrey. Now they're electing the likes of Michelle Bachmann? Gwaaan!);

ATT (a hard one, since my dad and one of my brothers worked for ATT--but ATT has been a big contributor to right-wing causes);

Chick Fil-a (next, abominable attitude toward gay persons--since backed off a bit, but...);

Whole Foods (WF moneybags CEO Mackey said Obamacare was worse than socialism--it is fascism!  Huh?  Fascism's the big buzzword now in the media.  If there's something the right wing doesn't like, such as sharing or health care, they used to call it "socialism."  Now they're calling it "fascism."  Bah, humbug!  Mackey is all in favor of capitalism.  Maybe he can establish a WF credit card so we can get loans to shop there.)

Remembering words from that old song we used to sing in college,

"Got along without you before I met you,
Gonna get along without you now.
I met somebody who's twice as nice,
and I don't love you anyhow.

Go, Ravens (I've already said that)....

Meanwhile.....on the West Bank

In case you haven't had time to think about Israel and Palestine in all of the hubbub here, Juan Cole's post today describes Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank.

http://www.juancole.com/2013/01/children-palestinian-colonialism.html

Surely, there must be something the US can do about this.  Netanyahu won another election, although not by much.  Still the US pours money into Israel's pockets so they can defend themselves.  Can we hope they can stop acting like thugs?

It's All Good....

When you've been a bad girl and kept on going rather than returning to the fold....

When you've done things no one else in your family has ever done or thought of doing--or approves of--and kept on going....

When you've broken all the rules you were taught about, and when everyone else you know thinks you are nuts...and kept on going.

You eventually wind up knowing that it's all been good, even if loathsome.

You realize you've learned something from every person, every experience....

And you realize who has been in charge, and who has been directing you, and what it means

in the Bible when it says, "The thoughts of men are not the thoughts of god"....

You realize that

It's not all about you.

It's about the human race.

Rise up!

One of my favorite bloggers, Emilie Johnson, has this post today.  I agree that this is heartening.  Bless the women in pink saris!!  (Image borrowed from the article.)

Gold from the Junk Mail File.....

NO, I didn't win the PCH Sweepstakes, but one of my alma maters is inviting me

to return next summer for their 100th anniversary.  The good woman who wrote out the invite also included this poem by John O'Donoghue:

"A Blessing for the New Year"

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The gray window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colors,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the curragh of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.

 

 

It's from his book To Bless This Space Between Us.  I think I want to paint it.

 

Something Else to Think About: The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

An excellent article!  The second amendment had nothing to do with arming the whole country.  It was set up so that states with large slave-owning populations could create armed patrols to keep slaves from running away or staging uprisings.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

And just fyi....even now black men are still shot and killed at 8x the rate of white men. 

Let's get over the Second Amendment nonsense and ban the guns, especially the automatics and high-capacity magazines!

Ai Weiwei in DC - Update, More Photos

"Cube Light," Ai Weiwei, 2003

I wish the USA had an artist like Ai Weiwei.  (The only person who comes close is Michael Moore, but he works mostly in video and motion pictures.)  Weiwei drives the Chinese government crazy with his popularity and brave challenges to the Chinese status quo.  Even so, he was one of the collaborators on the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium, constructed in 2008.  The Hirshhorn Museum in DC is showing Weiwei's "According to What?" show until February 24, 2013.  With some 50 pieces of his art, the exhibit includes video, audio, photography, sculpture, graphic design, and architecture.  He also has his thoughts posted in the gallery, too.  

Ai Weiwei's show is unlike anything I've ever seen at the Hirshhorn before.  Weiwei helped conduct an investigation, begun by another artist, into the number of students who died in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.  Schools collapsed in the earthquake because of shoddy, cheap construction (referred to as "tofu" construction), and more than 5,000 children were lost.  Weiwei and a large number of volunteers tracked down their names.  In his studio in China, he has papered the walls with the lists.  One wall of the exhibit here also has a copy of this listing, accompanied by audio of volunteers reading each name aloud.  Linda Delk, photographer extraordinaire, lent the following photos of the "Quake Names" wall and "Snake Ceiling," made of student backpacks of various sizes (representing the various ages) to me for this post!  Thanks, Linda.

Copyright Linda Delk 2013

Copyright Linda Delk 2013

This kind of exposure has irritated the Chinese government no end, and Weiwei has been beaten (requiring brain surgery in Germany) and jailed and placed under house arrest in China with no access to the internet.  Before this, he spent 12 years in the USA--Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, mostly.  (A couple of the photos in the exhibit show him with Brooklynite Allen Ginsberg.)  Ai Weiwei--talented, funny, humane, brave, conscientious--is a saint for the modern age.

I thought of some of the new construction going up here in DC, and I remember being horrified to see that the initial stage of one entire development, building after building, was made of wood 2x4s.  Not steel, not poured concrete...wood.  I think there's a DC law that says all housing must be made of brick.  Anyway, DC's old structures are being demolished daily here.  Photos of new developments in China are also part of the exhibit, and remarkably, the scene is almost the same.  The Chinese are demolishing the old and replacing it with tall buildings housing many, not just one or two families.  The bowls of freshwater pearls represent China's natural wealth, which is fast disappearing in a profit-driven age.  Are we, too, becoming China?

[P.S.  I apologize for the scarcity of photos. I plan to go back with my real camera and take some more.  I really want a good photo of the "Tea House"...which is made of compressed tea.  The scent is lovely, although we don't have smell-o-vision yet......

More Fun--A New Blog Find!!

Fishs Eddy has a blog!!  This is wonderful.  The blogger is Julie, who, with her husband Dave,  founded Fishs Eddy in 1986.  Fishs Eddy is the fabulous dish/glassware/flatware/t-shirt/lots else store on Broadway between 23rd St. & Union Square.  Most of what I've bought there in the past 20 years since I moved to these parts has been t-shirts, and I think I may still have one or two of those.  Yup...the photo on the left is from a short-sleeved, V neck Fishs Eddy t-shirt, although in real life it's not quite as toast-colored....it's more charcoal brown.  The rest of my FE finds got broken, as crockery often does, or moved away with former housemates, ditto.


Except this cup with Democratic party stars.

Anyway, Julie the blogger of Fishs Eddy has a wacky sense of humor, and she has photos and everything.  What a thrill to find this at the beginning of 2013, the year I've resolved to have more fun.  Fishs Eddy the blog, like the store, is fun! 

The High Co$t of Fun!

OK....My new year's resolution, made after a couple days of hemming & hawing (see "New Year's Resolution?" January 3, 2013), is to have more fun.  No problem with having fun--except I don't, much.

Now I know why.  I used to have this book by Sister Karol Jackowski, a nun (rhymes with fun), called Ten Fun Things to Do Before You Die.  Except I don't have it any more.  I gave it away, thinking (?!) to myself "Who needs this?"  The answer, especially now, is "I do."

Amazon offers used copies of just about every title they sell.  There's a nice bookseller in MN (I used to live there, so I picked them) that carries it for $1.50 plus $3.99 postage.  Sold!

Amazon is very helpful in listing other books by the same author, and two caught my eye right away:


1) Good Cooking Habits: Food for Your Body, Your Soul, and Your Funnybone by Nun Other Than Fr. Karol Jackowski.  (I don't know what the "Fr." is all about.  Did she ordain herself?)  What appeals to me is that Karol Jackowski belongs to a modern community of women who have left all the nunny Catholic stuff behind (the habits, the convent, the chapter of faults, the discipline).  They live in regular housing and support themselves.  Jackowski, for example, used to run the fabulously wacky Alphabets shop in NYC's East Village.  These women get together once a month for a meeting, which Jackowski calls "Margaritaville," and they serve drinks (frozen margaritas are especially valued), chopped liver,  pizza.  This sounds like a lot of fun!!  The book excerpt in Amazon reads like a lot of fun, too.  Jackowski is sort of hatched on a branch.  

2) Sister Karol's Book of Spells and Blessings.  This book also sounds like a lot of fun.  I like the idea of spells, and I can think of some I'd like to cast.  (Nothing mean or nasty, but there's one orange fellow in the House of Representatives who could use some spelling.)   Sold, also.  

So now the exchequer is down almost $25 bucks just because of this obsession with having fun.  This is probably why I've felt fun deprived.  
Well, it's all in a good cause.  Nuns, even ex-nuns, are very good at finding good causes.

More on 350.org

This time, from Amy Goodman &Democracy Now:




Special thanks to Guapo from Democracy for Bell!

New Year's Resolution?

Or...."What more can a poor woman do."  There's the question around here.  I've never made New Year's resolutions, for the most part.

But maybe this year I shall:  I resolve to have more fun.

This doesn't seem like much, but "fun" has mostly been beyond my capacity.  Yet, having enjoyment in simple, silly things might improve my somber disposition. Not that it needs improving:  that's what I was given.

But still....It might be nice to have more fun.  It might add to the human race's overall positive state.

So....the next question is "what's fun?"  (Or, as I often say, "Wot ees thees FUN of which you speak?")

What I envision is a table with a lace tablecloth and a deck of cards and a bottle of something...ice water, perhaps, or schnapps?  And a friendly card partner waiting to shuffle and deal.  (This isn't original...Lidia Bastianich has a picture of her and her mother, perhaps, in such a setting on one of her books.)

I might as well be picturing me flying through the air....that might be fun, too.  But I'd rather be sitting down.

New Year's Resolutions are not easily made by some of us.  Me, especially.

Join 350.org in 2013!

As Louise Erdrich, National Book Award winner, bookseller, and blogger urges us: JOIN 350.org!  XE is joining.  She feels she owes it to her two little great-grandchildren who will join us in a few months.

Before you rush out and get a gun.....

The wonderful folks at Democracy for Bell have posted an eye-opening YouTube about what happens when ordinary people get training to carry concealed weapons.  I'm thinking of my old pal from St. Anthony's when I say please don't do this!

Buddhist Thoughts on Christmas Eve

The leader of a holiday candlelight celebration on Christmas Eve (last night) at a local Buddhist temple urged us to see  love and care in yesterday's holiday shopping madness.  She said "People are buying gifts and preparing special food to make their loved ones happy," and she said we should rejoice in this evidence of caring, even as the hustle and bustle can frustrate us. She and the prayers/chants we recited urged us to take joy in the caring and the natural beauty around us. As a Christmas Eve observance, it was one of the more inspiring of all those I've attended in my long life.

When I was a kid, my Christmas Eve observance wasn't remotely religious.  I was put to bed before my parents went off to Midnight Mass, and I spent the time watching out my bedroom window, hoping to spot Santa Claus.  I didn't pray for this or that gift, but I had expectations (rarely met).

As a postulant and junior novice in the convent, we went to bed after night prayer (9 pm), and then were awakened at about 11:30pm by the senior novices singing Christmas carols as they walked down the dormitory halls carrying lighted candles.  We quickly dressed and went down to the chapel for Midnight Mass.  It was all quite beautiful, and I loved it.  I don't remember anything spiritual about it--nothing that made me examine my thoughts, anyway.

After my marriage and the birth of my wonderful children, Christmas became something like the Buddhist leader described--my neighbors and I rushing around preparing food and gifts and decorations for those we loved.

Later, after my divorce and time in NYC, and after the kids were grown and left home, I spent one Christmas Eve with a friend who was president of her synagogue. We went to a Kosher Israeli restaurant and dined with all kinds of people, including families with young children, who were not celebrating Christmas in any way.  I learned that Jewish families often went to the movies on Christmas or ate supper in a Chinese restaurant (often the only kind that was open) as something pleasant to do while their Christian friends were deep in the Santa/Baby Jesus experience.

Now that I'm old and living alone, far from the rest of my family and most of my children, I am enjoying different ways of celebrating this time of year. I especially liked last night's Buddhist event. It's certainly made me think about how I see the world and my place in it. And I can see that I need to amp up my appreciation of beauty everywhere.

My friend Cathy showed me her sister's Christmas letter, and I was blown away by her stories and pictures.  Cathy said, "Yes, she's a wonderful writer."  and I said, "It's more than that."  Then she said, "And she has a beautiful family."  And I said, "It's deeper than that...she has a loving heart."

So at this time of year and in this time of my life....I can see that the message of everything, not just of "Christmas" or the "Solstice" or "Hanukkah," is paying attention to the gifts around and within us.  Some of the greatest gifts to me have been my family members and children and friends.  So Merry Christmas to all once again.  You have lit up my life, and I am deeply grateful.

Rocky Mountain Beauty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUOQ_yPW_0s

Here's to all my friends.  Some of us have seen these sights, some not.  Merry Christmas. God Jul, God Yul, Froeliche Weinachten, Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad, Buon Natale!!

Happy Solstice!

HenCam has a wonderful post to mark today, which is solstice.  She's even written a story in which the animals talk on solstice--which is an old European superstition/tradition.  Even the Christmas carols we used to sing as kids had talking animals in them!

Here's the link!!

I love her story!  Her animals are kind and polite and loving.  Just what we need!

Merry Christmas to all!!  The days will be getting longer from now on.  I love this time of year, although I don't much like shopping and all the other stuff that goes with it.

My wonderful neighbor Shirley hung a beautiful wreath on the door to Chez Carew.  At the farmers market last week, I bought her some local honey, but I have to wrap the bottle first before I give it to her. The rubber plant is standing in for the Christmas tree this year as the Festivus Pole, and it seems to enjoy the lights!  It's even grown a lovely new leaf at the top with a red wrapper, fitting the season.  May your days be merry and bright!!

Welcome to The Manifest-Station

When reading one of my favorite feel-good newsletters this a.m.,  I found my way to The Manifest-Station, a blog by a yoga teacher who also is deaf.  (I think.)

What I like about the blog is not that she's deaf, but the question on her home page.  It's a question I've seen on the same feel-good newsletter earlier this year:  "What are the 5 most beautiful things in front of you right now?"

And I'll go ahead and answer this:

1.  The photo of my Irish friend Jo's birthday party at the Tombs 12 years ago (heh...we both looked good, Jo!!)

2. The map of the world from Doctors Wthout Borders.  It's up to date!! 

3. My dad's old magnifying glass, without which I could not read the fine points of the map in #2.

4.  The jug of wine Sally brought for my birthday gig. Still more or less untouched, waiting for me to gather the ingredients for coq au vin or boeuf bourguignon. Soon, soon.

5.  A teacup with scenes from Beatrix Potter's 'Peter Rabbit."

Be all that as it may, I'm doing this because I want to make this post set the tone for chez carew here.  Why?  I got another favorite news digest this morning, this one from FlyLady: "When Words Fail Us".  FL sez:

You set the tone for your home. Put on some wholesome television, wonderful music, or go for a walk. You have to take care of yourself, too.

Yes, it really does say "wholesome television"...but I'll skip the cynicism for today. I'm just trying to BE HERE NOW.  So....if I can find five things of beauty among the clutter on & around the wee kitchen table upon which I'm using my laptop, you can do the same right where you are.  Enjoy!

 

The Boys

(from left) John, Bob, Paul, Gene

This photo of my four brothers was on the mantel, then later in the bookcase next to the fireplace, for as long as I can remember. My mother's beautiful penmanship on the back says it was taken January 9, 1933.  That means John was 10, Bob was 8, Paul was 6, Gene was 2, and I was four years in the future.  God, how I coveted those leather boots, hats, and jackets!! (The naval gear, not so much.)

We were like two separate families, my brothers and I.  They all grew up in the same town, played in the same neighborhoods, and went to the same church and school.  By the time I came along, the family was on the verge of moving to the place where I grew up and from which the 3 oldest boys soon left for the army in WWII and then their adult lives.  

My brother Bob died this past week.  Bob was a beautiful man...the rock for many people, including his six children, many grandchildren, and one fabulous little toddler great-grandchild.  He never moved south after he retired.  He said he liked the cold and snow, and he kept trim by keeping his house in repair, baking his own bread, working in his yard, skiing, biking--and shoveling snow.  Mother Nature dropped 16 inches of snow on his town, beginning shortly before his burial.  Thanks be he didn't have to shovel that one!!

Rest in peace, dear Bob.  

One More Poem by Mary Lou

I've read all of the poems in her new book now, and here's one I like especially.  It sounds just like Mary Lou:

Breakfast with Carla

She is thinking about going out
With an actor,
A big step for her.
She's a corporate lawyer.
"I can't believe I like him,"
She says.
"We're so different."
"You may not know it,"
I tell her,
"But there is a Bohemian inside you."
She drinks coffee in silence,
Thinking it over.
"You're right," she says,
"I never realized it before."
"Well," I say, "Why do you think
We get along so well?
I'm a writer on welfare
Who just got out of Bellevue.
That's certainly Bohemian."
She finishes her salami and eggs
And I order another decaf.
"Maybe things will work out," she says.

Note to MEDIA: Sick of looking at Boehner....

And the Repugs want to stick it to the retirees again.  Balance their overblown-military-bonanza -and-low-taxes-for-the-rich budget on the backs of OLD FOLKS again??  Maybe the Presnet has forgotten his opening words on this topic after taking office in 2009:  "No cost of living (COLA) increases for SS recipients till 2012"??  (or was it 2013, and he chickened out and gave us a raise just before the election? Natch....we VOTE). But this longtime taxpayer has NOT forgotten this betrayal.

The COLA, as you might imagine, is not really based on inflation and the actual cost of living.  It's based on some arcane formula derived by the deranged (DBD) in some accounting office somewhere.  I mean, just stop and think a bit.  Did the cost of living go up at all in the years between 2009 and right now?  Wasn't it skyrocketing?  And didn't Congress get all kinds of extra pay during that period?  (Refresh what's left of your memory:  True, they did eschew pay raises in 2010-2012, but how about that $4,700 for just 2009?)  Seniors....ever see that kind of a raise in your SS?  (Mad, hysterical laughter). Do you think members of Congress ever go grocery shopping or fill their gas tanks in person?  Or get their prescriptions refilled?

There was a big kerfluffle recently about "living on food stamps" as a way to diet.  Here's a better one:  how about living on SS for 6 months?  Not only might you lose weight, you also might get kicked out of your apartment.

Please...NO MORE OF THIS TALK!  Social Security was never meant to be Congress' piggy bank.  Close the door on this one, and that means no more photos of Boehner and his new suntan and crisply ironed shirts.  Ish.

Mary Lou Lets It All Hang Out....

 The mail person rang the doorbell this morning and left a package on my welcome mat.  It's a book of poetry, "I Am Not Afraid," by my dear friend Mary Lou.  It's her first published book.  Mary Lou spent 5 years in college a long time ago (the last one on scholarship at Sarah Lawrence) and got a job as a secretary in NYC.  When she got sick, when the voices started, the doctors told her she had schizophrenia.

What with the various times spent in the hospital and the constant, powerful medication (which she takes religiously), she has not been able to concentrate enough to work--or even read much--for the past 20 or so years, maybe more.  She keeps busy doing whatever she can--in nursing homes, at St. Vincent's (before they closed it---boo!), visiting old people, holding their hands, sharing her friendly smile, generous with her spirit, which is pretty much all she has in this world. (Though goddess knows, this is more than enough!)  I met her after Mass one Sunday at St. Peter's in Chelsea, and we've been friends ever since.  In her nonjudgmental way, she's listened to me figure my path through various minor hells, and she loves pancakes as much as I do.  I forget the name of the place (remembered it--the Silver Spurs in Soho or the Village) where we always go for pancakes when I'm in NYC, but she knows the way.  She doesn't care that I am deaf.  She's wiser than almost anyone else I know.

All the while, whenever she can, she continues to write poems.  A friend helped her gather them and create the book.  It's a great treasure! 

Her poetry is fearless and sad and funny. Like this one:

You like tomatoes
Fresh from your garden
Cut up on your plate
With steak cooked
On the grill
In your backyard.
You have an ex-partner
Still living with you
Even though you broke up
Four years ago.
The house is occupied territory.
No wonder you are
In the backyard.

Or this one:

I may not write at all anymore.
I may just spend my time
Looking for artichokes
At vegetable stands on First Avenue
And lying with you
On the floor in the living room
Which is also the kitchen
Talking and kissing and laughing.
There will be time enough to write
When we are too old
To sit on the sidewalk eating pizza.

Or this one:

Mother Dolorosa
Mother of Sorrows

I come to you
My pink flamingo

I wash my hands
In holy water

Will you lay me
In the tomb?

Will I rise again
Like pizza dough?

Mea culpa
Mea culpa

Officially Older than Dirt -- More photos!

"Oh, wasn't them the happy days when troubles we had not,

And our mothers made colcannon in the little skillet pot!!?"
(Apropos of nothing other than the mind wandering to
days of yore as often happens on these days....)

Birthday Girl had an open house to celebrate another year, and Harry/Harriet the Horse was there, as Damon Runyon might have said.  It was an "up-lifting, wonderful gathering of great womenfolk," as one of the actual participants said.  It was great fun, for which Birthday Girl is still amazed and grateful!  (And yes, that is.)

And just like fabulous frosting on the cake, Linda sent these pix this aft.  Always nice to have a photographer in the mix!!  Sorry we missed the others who had left.

I Don't Get It.....

There are DEMOCRATS who are wobbling on cutting Social Security and Medicare?  I thought those kinds of thoughts occur only in tiny little Tea Party minds?

Were these DEMOCRATs and their presidential candidate actually around during this past election?  Or were they so busy raising $$ they forgot what it was for?

Didn't they get the message?  NO CUTS of any kind for Social Security and Medicare.  None.  Zero.  Zip.

Also, while we're at it, SS & Medicare are not ENTITLEMENTS!  We PAID for that shit, folks.  The money came out of our paychecks without fail.  

If they want to get rid of the deficit, they can stop making the stupid billion dollar bombers and sending millions of bucks to Israel every month.  And they can restore taxes for the very rich.

Digby's column today says it very well.  Look it up!

And what's Obama doing meeting with Romney today?  Does he have our permission to do this?  Did Romney start shipping his household stuff to the White House and the Presnit wants to return it??

Even MORE Music....

If you can call it that...I got this tune at work as a promotion from the record company in the early 1980s.  Mine was pink, too. It always makes me laugh.  Happy Monday!

More Mozart...."Prague" symphony (#38)

I asked Cathy if she had ever heard any other symphonies (besides the Jupiter) by Mozart. 

"Oh, sure," she said...."the Prague!" She's even visited Prague. The girl knows everything!

Stu: The Prague symphony is #38. I put that on here, knowing your obsession with numbers! *:0)

Start the week with Mozart!

Mozart wrote 41 symphonies!  I didn't know that.  Piano concertos, operas, yes.  Symphonies, no.  Beethoven was the symphony person I remember hearing the most.  But I read about this last night and checked it out.  I love the conductor especially:  Jeffrey Tate, leading the English Chamber Orchestra performing the Molto Allegro section of Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony, or #41.

I tried earlier this morning to post a bit about the Gaza war, but I couldn't get it to stick.  So...a little music....

Delusional Duck?

Nothing seems to slow down the Repug candidate for v.p.--not even losing the national election (especially in his hometown--first time ever and by 25 points).  He doesn't seem to have the brains to figure out his budget plan was a big part of what turned voters off the national Repug ticket.  His twisted nonsmile has been popping up already on the national media.  Can he just go away?  Nope.  Not when Boner needs him to continue the assault on ordinary voters, lest the rich guys who back them have to pay more taxes than they do now.  If this were the military, we could say "Cherchez la femme!"  but in this case, it's "Cherchez les gros chats!"  Look for the fat cats.

Welcome to Dan Ariely

I found a new blog that's fascinating:  Dan Ariely.  It's now on the right-hand side of XE's home page in Blogs I Love.  Ariely's "short bio" says,

Despite our intentions, why do we so often fail to act in our own best interest? Why do we promise to skip the chocolate cake, only to find ourselves drooling our way into temptation when the dessert tray rolls around? Why do we overvalue things that we’ve worked to put together? What are the forces that influence our behavior? Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University, is dedicated to answering these questions and others in order to help people live more sensible – if not rational–lives.

Via Open Culture, Ariely will offer a course--"A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior"--starting next spring, and I've signed up for it.  It's completely free, if you don't count the 7-10 hours per week required.  His blog notes that he is a "founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight." Boy, that's what I need!  HINDSIGHT!!

One Other Reason Why I'm Glad I Quit FaceBook

Quite apart from the outrage of having my FB account hacked and not being able to fix it with FB's lame instructions and virtually non-existent user support group, there is THIS TO CONSIDER. Thanks to Juan Cole for posting this yesterday.

This being the fact that FB et al. are selling our data to data mining companies. "Our data" include not just our names, addresses, occupations, phone numbers, but also our patterns of usage of the so-called social media, and many other things about our lives we like to consider cherished personal information.

There is no privacy any more unless you want to live in a cave, but c'mon....most of us do not consider our lives are up for sale. If FB or anyone else wants to monetize our data, shouldn't they at least be paying us for it?

Another Interesting Demographic Analysis....

Thanks to Juan Cole for this excellent commentary in response to Bill O'Reilly's lament on white male voters no longer having the majority. My favorite line is the last one:

What has happened is that America is democratizing, and people want a fairer system than dominance by male WASPs.

Demographics.....

Everybody's yakking about the voting patterns by race, gender, age, SES, etc., in Tuesday's election, but nobody's mentioned morality!

Even Fox News's early night exit polls had patterns like
"Regular church attendance 57% Romney; 42% Obama."

(Ha...later analysis shows it varied by religion, though:
Weekly attendance Protestant 70% Romney; 29% Obama.
Weekly attendance Catholic 57% Romney; 34% Obama. (Same as the overall average among church attendance at all.)

 Is anyone else curious to know what all those regular church attenders who voted for Romney think about Romney's wholesale, consistent LYING!!!??? Or what moral law allowed Ohio to turn over the state's voting machine business to a candidate's (Romney's) son's corporation? The whole election was full of this kind of thing.

My idea is that many, many voters in this country (say, 48%?) may not even know clearly what "morality" is--unless it relates to sex, although the Repugs have injected plenty of confusion there, too. Thankfully, the voters in Missouri were smart enough to throw out Akin! Ditto for Indiana voters and Mourdock!

Got Science? November 2012: Watch Out for Wooden Nickels...and Fake Government Reports | Union of Concerned Scientists

OK....it's time to get serious about one item that was not discussed much if at all in the recent presidential campaign:  global warming. 

This link takes you to an article about pseudoscience masquerading as addenda to previous genuine government reports.

Got Science? November 2012: Watch Out for Wooden Nickels...and Fake Government Reports | Union of Concerned Scientists

WE WON!!

Photo courtesy of NARAL Pro-Choice America's Photos

GO VOTE!!

"We can do so much when we are all in this together!"  Barack Obama

Remember your responsibilities to your fellow citizens! 

Something's Rotten in the State.....

So tonight I logged onto a DC website to see what time the polls open tomorrow.

And what catches my eye clearly in the upper right-hand corner is an AD for Romney/Ryan...something like "Virginia needs...."

Right.  Virginia needs a Republican administration like it needs a hole in the head.

Also, why Virginia??  This is DC, last I heard.

But...what about having political ads at polling places?  There's a law against this, and it's been around as long as I've been voting, which is many years.  Shouldn't putting ads on a state's voting information website count, too?

Is this just Google doing this?  Is Google so freaking greedy it doesn't care about following laws and clean elections??  Is this what the gazillionnaires are buying with their  megabucks?

Somebody DO something about this!!  NOW.  The election is in two days.  This stuff has to be cleared off the websites.

Much Better.....

Here's what I should have used to slice the apple:  the food pusher.  And please notice my thumb is MUCH better.  No bleeding for more than 24 hours, no swelling, hardly any pain.  It's sensitive to touch, but not all that bad.  I'm happy I could care for it when I couldn't get to the medical facilities in the area.

This was a storm bringing accidents.  Dear grandson Sam had to go to the dentist for two root canals and temporary caps when he fell and broke his bottom front teeth.  He's doing very well, too. 

The storm is bringing great change, too.  Tomorrow I get my new CI processor activated.  If it works well, I'll call my brother Bob, who has been moved to a hospice.  He has been the rock of the family for years.  And now it's his turn to retire from that responsibility.  God love you, Bob.  Say hi to everyone for us! 

School of Hard Knocks, Life Lessons 903-905

l.l. 903: USE THE FOOD PUSHER when you want to slice something on your mandoline--other than your thumb!!

l.l. 904: SAVE ALL THE GAUZE PADS AND TAPE from previous injuries!!

l.l. 905: Check out your first aid kit before the stupid hurricane hits and closes all the stores.

Welcome to Off the Porch

Please welcome Off the Porch to XE's "Blogs I Love."  My friend and former coworker, Linda, takes wonderful photographs, and she's begun publishing them in her blog Off the Porch.  It's taken her a while to spend time on photography; that seems to have been a simple hobby before she retired from her job.  She's still working almost as hard as she did before she retired, although she doesn't have to go to the office every day.  (Do you, Linda?  I hope not.) 

She has a great eye for beautiful patterns in nature, and I've shared several of her photos of birds on XE.  My favorite has always been the albino crow, published last September.  I fear the actual photo on this post is gone, and I don't know why.  I'll see if I can fix it.  Maybe Linda knows.  She knows so much about photography.

Welcome, Off the Porch!  Hope you post your photos of the waterfront in VA soon! 

"No Decent Woman or Girl Is Ever Seen Wearing Trousers"

Takin' a break from the hourly horrors of the campaign.  Found this by Maria Popova on brainpickings.org

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/17/1943-iberia-women-list/

Do the rules of conduct in rural Spain still influence us?? (Especially if we're Republicans?  Oops...)

I LOVE brainpickings.org, btw.  It's a gold mine, and NO ADS!!

Mad at Obama? Vote for him, THEN protest.

Digby has a great post today for unhappy progressives by David Atkins, in which he quotes Cornell West about what to do if you're mad at O about the drones, Guantanamo, et al.

VOTE FOR OBAMA....Romney would be MUCH WORSE on all of these issues plus the rest that are driving us nuts.  The time to lean on President Obama is AFTER the election.

You can communicate with him about any and all of this, but don't let Romney into the White House.

Saw It Off and Let It Drift Over Toward Cuba....

Good Monday morning, folks.

Alan Grayson, former Democratic representative from Florida, send me a fund-raising letter today.  This is nothing unusual.  I'd say a good half of my emails come from various parts of the country where people are locked in this election battle.  What's different about Alan's letter, however, is the first part:

Dear Mary:

Question: Who is the largest single contractor of the Republican Party of Florida today?

Answer: Someone whose company, in 2004, shredded Democratic voter registration forms.

And now it's happening again.

Meet Nathan Sproul. His first cause was ending sex education. That catapulted him to the head of the Republican Party of Arizona.

Sproul then set up Sproul & Associates. In 2004, Republicans paid Sproul's firm $7.9 million to go around registering voters under the confusing name of "America Votes," which happens to be the name of a large progressive organization. Then a former employee of Sproul & Associates showed a local TV station shredded voter registration forms - for Democrats only. He said that Sproul's firm faithfully turned in Republican registration forms, and shredded the Democratic ones. Or just refused to register Democrats at all. Another Sproul employee said the same thing.

Fast forward to the 2008 election, in Florida. ACORN registered tens of thousands of new voters, Democratic, Republican and Independent. ACORN was so good at voter registration that Republican leaders in the Florida state government retaliated by criminalizing the voter registration process. The Republicans booby-trapped voter registration so badly that even the Florida League of Women Voters gave up. Virtually any irregularity in the voter registration process can land you in jail. And you know what they did to ACORN.

Fast forward again, to the 2012 election, in Florida. The Republican Party of Florida, the Republican National Committee, and the Romney Campaign all hire a firm called Strategic Allied Consulting to do voter registration in Florida. In fact, Strategic Allied Consulting has become the single largest contractor to the Republican Party of Florida, receiving more than $3 million. It is the sole voter registration operation hired by the Republican National Committee, at the expense of a further $3 million. It has been hired to do the same work in Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. And the person behind Strategic Allied Consulting is . . . Nathan Sproul.

Which explains the reports, this month, of voter registration fraud by Strategic Allied Consulting in a dozen Florida counties. More than 100 cases in one county alone.

 Make you sick?  Make you feel powerless when you go to your voting place to cast your vote?

What can we do about this NOW? 

From Darlene!

Darlene's blog isn't working, but she sent this out today. She didn't write it herself--a Canadian man named Gary Taylor did. She says "My sentiments exactly!" And I say, "Mine, too!"

Since I am a Canadian,I can't vote for anyone in the upcoming US election; however if Romney is elected with his bullshit policies it will confirm, once again that over half of the US population are as stupid as a sack of hammers. The myth of Horatio Alger is the basis of belief in a system that is designed to favour the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. And by everyone I mean the citizens of the US and many others in the world. MAD AT THE PRESIDENT??? After The 8 Years Of The Bush/Cheney Disaster, Now You Get Mad? You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President. You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq. You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war. You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined. You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq. You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country. You didn't get mad when they didn't catch Bin Laden. You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits. You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed. You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown. You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the 1%, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks. You didn't get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades. You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance. You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values. You finally got mad when a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick... Oh, Hell No! Gary Taylor

Something To Think About Other Than Poll #s

One of the commenters I like the most is Professor Juan Cole. He has a wonderful column today about a speech Romney gave recently on US foreign policy at VMI. This is just the first paragraph of Cole's column:

Mitt Romney’s speech at VMI (full text at the link courtesy of Current) on foreign policy has been widely condemned as vague and lacking in substance, sort of like the man who gave it. But the speech is also full of suggestions and criticisms of the Obama administration that are simply not realistic. The speech is Romney’s “Mission Impossible,” only without the cool theme music and also without a prayer of being actually achievable short of launching a series of 5 wars. I’ve decided that my initial assumption that a businessman of Romney’s experience must know something about the world was dead wrong. Apparently it is possible to sit in cushy big offices in companies like Bain, and to remain completely ignorant of foreign affairs. Romney’s speeches are all just a replaying for us of the prejudices of CEOs when they play golf together and complain vaguely about the Chinese, Russians, Arabs, and so forth. Or, maybe Romney has gotten so many campaign contributions from arms manufacturers that he can’t help see foreign affairs through the lens of new wars he wants to fight.

Cole then lists Romney's Five Wars and discusses each. It's an interesting look into Romney's thinking on foreign policy. It's not something I want to see brought to fruition by his election.

Taibbi has it right!

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has a great column today, about how the real news takes a back seat to the hype. And the idea I like the best is this one (emphasis here & there is mine):

The campaign should start and finish in six weeks, and there should be free TV access to both candidates. And it should be illegal to publish poll numbers. This isn't as crazy as it sounds – they actually had such a law in Russia while I lived there, and people were much happier. (Well, they were still miserable, because they were Russian, but at least they weren't stressing about poll numbers.) Think about it: Banning poll numbers would force the media to actually cover the issues. As it stands now, the horse race is the entire story – I can think of a couple of cable networks that would have to go completely dark tomorrow, as in Dan-Rather-Dead-Fucking-Air dark, if they had to come up with even 10 seconds of news content that wasn't centered on who was winning. That's the dirtiest secret we in the media have kept from you over the years: Most of us suck so badly at our jobs, and are so uninterested in delving into any polysyllabic subject, that we would literally have to put down our shovels and go home if we didn't have poll numbers we can use to terrify our audiences. Can you imagine if your favorite news network had to do stories like, "What is the Overseas Private Investment Corporation up to, and what do each of the candidates think about it?" That would be like asking Nineties-era baseball players to take the field without popping greenies – what, you mean play the game sober? Half the on-air talent would have to resign, or do ad work hawking reverse mortgages. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-hype-became-bigger-than-the-presidential-election-20121009#ixzz28q14q2xn

Social Security: President Obama's Biggest Failure in Last Week's Debate

Social Security: President Obama's Biggest Failure in Last Week's Debate

Sorry to post a link, but HAVE YOU SEEN THIS????  

A Nationally-Televised Presidential Fail

A Nationally-Televised Presidential Fail

Let's encourage President Obama to recover from whatever vapors he suffered from last night.   Whose idea was it to let a bully like Romney run all over everything?  Have we come so far to have to endure this?

 

Green Eggs, No Ham

Dr. Seuss?  Nope.  Please welcome HenCam to XE's list of "Blogs I Love."  BTW, it's early in the morning here, and when I just checked HenCam, the HenCam was dark and was broadcasting this notice: "The animals are asleep for the night."  But sunrise is almost here.  Animals?  There are 7 hens and a rabbit sleeping in the area with the hen cam.  There are also a goat cam and a several other cams in HC, but I haven't investigated them yet.

Anyway, how did I get from politics to chickens?  I was feeling a bit desperate last night when I realized that a couple of the posts just before this one have been up there for...gee...a couple of weeks now?  I wanted to come up with something of my own, and I was feeling a bit brain dead.

I have been focusing my efforts on Snoozeville Chronicle, one of my other blogs, where recently I posted about cracking open the daily breakfast eggs and finding one that was chartreuse!! The raw egg was bright yellowy green.  My brilliant friend & photographer/former coworker Linda investigated and discovered HenCam.

Whoa!  What a fount of knowledge the HenCam blogger is!  It's just like Linda to find something like this.  Takes one to know one. 
  

You don't have to be paranoid these days, but it helps!!

I've been thinking...if the Repugs wanted to take out one of their most intelligent and articulate adversaries--a blogging woman in her 80s and confirmed voter for Democratic party candidates--how could they do that?  Hack into her account and mess with her passwords so she can't post any more?  If we were half as vocal and effective as this woman in our opposition to the Repugs, they might try it with us, too.

Tip of the hat to you, dear blogging woman in your 80s!!   You know who you are!

PSA

Let's help get rid of these unnecessary laws!!

Oh, My Goodness!!

Something has gone totally awry with my accounts needing passwords.  For the past 2-3 days, my usual passwords have not worked, so I've had to change them....and shortly thereafter, the new one won't work, either.  I really don't know what's going on, but where it's been most apparent has been with Google and FaceBook.

I've received odd emails ostensibly from people I know (my oldest daughter, for example, and one of her cousins?? one of my oldest and best friends from elementary school??).  These emails are NOT from them, and I have not clicked any links, etc.  But still, what is going on?

Clearly I am not alone in this.  Leslie Parsley of Parsley's Pictures sent me this a while ago this afternoon:

Here's a link to an article at Mad Mike's America that was just published about this stuff. 

http://madmikesamerica.com/2012/09/gone-phishing-beware-of-online-scamming/

Good luck to all, and I hope the spammers & scammers just go away!