Musings January 26-28

Obama helps the economy, increases sales:

·         Sales of Al Green’s songs shot up 490% after the President sang four lines from one of his songs

·         Sales of Gov Jan Brewer’s book “Scorpions for Breakfast” shot up over 150,000%, moving from 250,000 place to #7 on Amazon after the President had a little “dust up” with her, so I guess it pays off to shake your finger in the President’s face.  And she says she felt threatened?

 Walt Kelley, quoted in J.L.H seed catalog:  “Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not; either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought.”

On foreign policy, President Obama is accused of appeasement, and warned that “you don’t negotiate with the enemy.”
On dealing with congress, President Obama could be accused of appeasement, he just  didn’t understand that “you can’t negotiate with the enemy.”     
It may be that the President has learned something:  he would be more successful negotiating with Ahmadinajad than with Mitch McConnell or Eric Cantor.

Nancy Pelosi had better be careful about saying that she knew something that would bring Gingrich down.  Marianne Gingich thought the same thing, and instead, Gingrich took the opportunity to smear the press and accuse Marianne of lying, the audience gave him a standing ovation, and voted for him in the primary.

J. L. Hudson, seedsman and avowed anarchist:  “You’ve got to read between the lies.”

The Republican presidential candidates seem determined to prove that if there is such a thing as intelligent design, some creatures fell off the drawing board at a crucial moment.

Still, there were a couple of light Romney touché moments in the latest debate:

·         Romney seemed unsure when asked about an ad of his in which Gingrich was accused of saying that Spanish was a ghetto language.  When assured that it was his ad, he then turned to Gingrich and said, “Well, did you say it?” and when Gingrich said, “It was taken out of context,” Romney turned back to the audience and quipped, “He said it.”

·         Gingrich assails Romney for his investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Romney attempts to explain that away, then turns to Gingrich and points out that he, himself, has investments n Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Gingrich lamely says, “Right.”

A Gingrich ad, speaking of Romney:  “What kind of man would mislead, distort, and deceive just to win an election?  This man would.”  Snort!  Snicker, snigger!  Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee when I heard that.

 Wallace Stegner: “ As long as you are going to get old, you might as well get as old as you can.”

One of the candidates suggested that Ron Paul, because of his age, should produce his medical records.  Ron Paul offered to challenge any of the candidates to a 25-mile bike ride.  He says they better be careful or he may accuse them of age discrimination.
My favorite sweatshirt logo, which I got when I turned 70: Over what hill? Where? When? I don’t remember any hill.

Outraged at their outrage

I am “appalled” that voters can be persuaded to vote for a candidate who engages in a “destructive, vicious, negative” attack on a moderator in a debate and, by extension, on all media.  It is “despicable” that Gingrich and his ilk have done much to make it “harder to govern this country,” given their continual attacks on President Obama.  And “harder to attract decent people to run for public office,” of whom, I suppose, Gingrich is a prime example.  [Okay, you may have noticed that those words in quotes are the ones used by Gingrich in his unwarranted attack on John King.]

So there they are on stage, four of them now, three of them “decent people” who have been married 43 years, 54 years, 21 years, to their first wives, with a total of 17 children among them, exemplars of family values.  And there is Gingrich, married three times in 50 years and a serial adulterer.  Divorcing each wife after she was diagnosed with serious illness.  And there those four men stand, on stage, in noble debate, before a sanctimonious, family-values, DOMA-supporting audience, who cheer Gingrich wildly for his defense of his blatantly adulterous life, (as they did in a previous debate when he "put Juan Williams in his place") and go on to vote for him in the primary over those other three “decent people.”

Go figure.

Cell Phones vs Good Neighbors

(see related blog “Journal Jan 4-8 2012”)

A person without a cell phone is always being advised to get one, if only for emergency use if a vehicle breaks down on the highway.  But how do cell phones really compare with good neighbors for real help?  Recently when my vehicle broke down on a lonely stretch of Route 7 east of Berryville VA, my first thought was, “Oops, my children would say that now is when a cell phone would come in handy.”  Well, would it have?  Who would I have called?  Not AAA, I do not subscribe.  But if I had, they would have sent a tow truck to haul my vehicle into their nearest approved garage.   And not a local garage, since I didn’t have a phone book and couldn’t know where was the nearest garage.  But if I had, they would have done a road call and probably towed me in to their shop.  And not local police?  They would have done the same, sent a tow truck for me.  My daughter?  Well, she could perhaps have searched the phone book and found a nearby garage to tow me, and then we could have arranged for how I would get to her place—would someone come after me or should I take a taxi?

But after I sat there by the side of the road for about 10 or 15 minutes, a kindly gent—a true good neighbor—stopped by, and when I explained the situation to him, expecting to have to call a tow truck and then my daughter, he decided to try to start the vehicle.  It started up and was running fine.  He advised me to go to the nearest garage, back in Berryville, and loaned me his cell phone to call my daughter.  She did not answer, so I left a message.  She could have been no help at that time, and she would not have been able to call me back.

The garage quickly found my problem, made repairs, and sent me on my way for an outlay of $64.00.  After I used their landline phone to call my daughter, brief her on what had happened, and update her on my expected time of arrival.

Good neighbors over cell phones anytime.

Journal January 4-8 2012

Journal Jan 2012  weather and health

On weather, poultry, vehicle, health, dogs and cats, and neighbors, including a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day (with an adventure from very scary to very funny)

This has been a mild winter, even allowing for blooming branches of winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, and winter honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, to be brought into the house for decoration at Christmas.  As well, daffodils are several inches tall, foliage only of course.   Ice has formed and quickly dissipated about four times thus far, in contrast to last year when it was solid by Christmas, and remained solid for some weeks.

There was a swift change on Wednesday, January 4, when I awoke at 5 a.m. to a temp of 8.6^o and the pond was about two-thirds covered with ice, which was itself covered with a fresh skiff of snow.  It had to have frozen really rapidly to have caught that light snow-fall.   During the day one could practically watch the ice inching across the pond.  I had planned on going in to Romney first thing in the morning, to get that slow-leaking tire repaired and to pick up poultry feed.    But I decided to delay because of the cold and uncertain road conditions.   So, although I don’t like to disrupt my day with midday errands, I waited till past noon to go.    The tire had a nail in it, amazing that the leak was so slow, and a good thing that I got it fixed before my trip to Silver Spring.   I picked up the feed, and arrived home to find that Hazel was already here.  She helped me unload feed, fill feeders and waterers, and we went over procedures for caring for animals, etc., while I was gone.

Poultry and Predators

The extreme cold did not persist, and the weather since then has been relatively mild.  On Thursday morning, the 5^th, I went down early to take care of poultry.   Not all of the ducks and geese were up at the barn--in fact, only two geese (Papa Pilgrim and a Chinese female)  and three ducks (a drake and two females), which meant that a goose  (the gray),  and four ducks were missing.  I had already told Hazel not to let the chickens, guineas, and turkeys out of the barn while I was gone, because it could be tricky getting them back in at night.  Now I shut up the ducks and geese in the pen, then walked down to the pond but saw neither hide nor feather of the missing critters.  Indeed, never did.  My dogs were running around on the ice, sniffing at tracks and what appeared to be scuffles in the snow on the ice.  My surmise later was that, whatever got them, they were chased onto the pond ice and couldn’t put up much of a fight.  Whereas normally they would have escaped into the water and been safe.  Some must have panicked and escaped to the barn.  I couldn’t do a further investigation at the time, as I needed to leave by 9.  Hazel tells me that she later walked around the pond, and saw an excess of feathers on the ground beyond the berm.  This is sad, a real bummer.  I carefully cull my flocks, choosing the ones I want to keep; it’s not as if I just had a surplus of birds and could afford to lose some. 

Very Scary and Very Funny

It was probably nearer 9:30 when I left.  I was on Route 7 tooling along and making good time in my Toyota pickup, until about 5 miles east of Berryville, all of a sudden the engine started racing, the accelerator was stuck, I don’t know how fast I was going but I put on the brake hard, was able to get off the highway, just barely onto the shoulder, threw the gear shift into park—there was a horrible racket and resistance as I did so and I was sure that I had destroyed the gears –and turned off the engine.  Sat there shaking.  (Of course, you know I don’t have a cell phone).  About ten minutes passed, no one stopping.  I had put on my emergency signals, raised the hood, and stood beside the car (on the passenger side) looking helpless.   Finally a gentleman stopped—he had apparently passed me then turned around and came back—and he mentioned that he had seen a county police car pass me by.   I explained what had happened, and thought that I needed to have the car towed and then get in touch with Amy and see how I was to continue my journey.  But then he said, “Let me give it a try,” took my keys and turned on the ignition.  Everything seemed fine, nothing was racing.  He then advised me to go back to Berryville and stop at a garage there and have it checked.  He also let me use his cell phone, and I called Amy and left a message, that I was having car trouble and was headed back to a garage in Berryville and so I would be a little late.

Everything seemed fine, and I almost decided to turn around and continue my trip, thinking perhaps there had just been a pebble under the accelerator.  Or something.  But then I thought that would be breaking faith, with the man who had helped and advised me, and with my family who were depending on me to use sound judgment when traveling.   So I continued to Berryville, pulled in at a little hole-in-the-wall garage called “Big Daddy,” and explained the problem. 

Why do garages assume that everyone who stops in wants to read only magazines about cars?  Oh, well, I had only waited a little while when one of the Big Daddies walked in, laughing, and held out his hand, showing me a handful of acorns.  It seems that little critters had stuffed the throttle body full of acorns, which had lodged against the butterfly valve and made it stick.  As well, they had chewed up the air filter and made a large nest somewhere.  So after we had all had a good laugh, and a sigh of relief that it wasn’t more serious, they had soon corrected and replaced as necessary and I was on my way, after calling Amy again to give her an update, although I didn’t try to explain the problem.

To My Health

About the rest of the day, you may know that I was visiting with Amy. third daughter, because on Friday I was to undergo a medical procedure, a colonoscopy to follow up on the surgery I had done about a year ago.  While this procedure is simple enough and done under anesthesia, it is the afternoon and evening before that constitute the rest of the “terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.”  But if you have been there, done that, you know whereof I speak, and you surely don’t need to hear about it.  And if you have not, then you don’t want to hear about it either.   Your time will come.  Suffice it to say, that Amy is the very best of nurses.

On Friday Halle, fourth daughter, had graciously arranged to take the day off from work, and she drove me to and from Washington Hospital Center for the procedure.  A wonderful companion.  Afterwards, we stopped at Quiznos for a late lunch, and Halle joined us—Amy, Lloyd, grands Julia and Austin, and myself, for Lloyd’s Famous Spaghetti Supper.  We all had a nice, normal visit.  And oh, I got a clean bill of health.  And got a good night’s sleep.

Home Again

On Saturday I arrived home about 2 in the afternoon.   The dogs of course were wildly enthusiastic, especially little Tessa, who, no matter whether I have been gone short or long time, will not go outside until I have hugged her and given her a body rub and let her know that I am as glad to see her as she is to see me.  Hazel tells me that Frankie was very down while I was gone, spent most of her time in my bedroom, often did not even want to go out.
 
Hazel, good neighbor that she is, had taken great care of poultry, pets, and birds, and she and her husband had put up plastic on the back porch and repaired the innards of the kitchen stove, as we had discussed, but not only that she had undecorated the tree and she and Ray carried it out.  Service beyond the call of duty.

Weather has been mild, with heavy rain last night.  Expected to turn colder, with snow showers tonight and tomorrow, not more than an inch or two, though.

It is good to be home.

All’s well that ends well.  And may you all have a good, happy, and productive New Year.

God and the Candidates

Some of the Republican candidates for U. S. President—Bachman, Perry, and Santorum come to mind—would have it that they prayed, and that God told them He wanted them to run for president.    Each seems to have taken that to mean that God wanted h/h to be king president.  But clearly they can’t all be right.    Did they consider that perhaps He wanted them to run in order to add some levity to the race?  Or because He wanted to see millions of dollars wasted?    Or because He wanted to keep people guessing as to who His real candidate was?  Or were some of them mistaken?  Or were some praying to the wrong god?*  
Because we know He does pick the president, does He not?   As in 2000, when the race in Florida wasn’t going the way He intended, He just told His judges to appoint George W Bush, and they did.  Funny, though, one wonders if He is against Democracy—if not, He would have let the democratic process take its course; He would have trusted the election to reflect the will of the American people.  If He is really so in control, why couldn’t He have just turned a few more minds to vote the ‘right’ way, to reflect his will?   
Anyway, why should God care who rules a given nation?  And does he?  Some nations have kings, ruling by the “divine right of kings,” as do England and North Korea.  Some have dictators, benevolent or malign, but very, very rich, as have been some of our very own presidents.   And some of our own presidents have acted as though they thought they were ruling by “divine right,” sometimes referred to as “mandate,” or “political capital.”
There is, of course, precedent for judges to select a nation’s ruler.  Consider the story in the book of Samuel.  About 3200 years ago, the Israelites, who had been governed for generations by judges, had started agitating to have a king.  Other nations had kings, why shouldn’t they?  (They seem to have been worried that one of Samuel’s sons would rule when he died, and his sons had “turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.”  Hmmm…we don’t know anyone like that, do we?)  Samuel, the old, wise, current judge, said, “no, no, no…” but they said “yes, yes, yes…”  So Samuel  went to God with their request and God said, “Tell them I say no, no, no…and also show them just what a king would do to them” and so Samuel did, and he warned them:  “This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you:  He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.  And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.  And he will take your daughters to be confectionaires, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.  And he will take your fields and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.  And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants.  And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.  He will take the tenth of your sheep:  and ye shall be his servants.  And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.”  (I Samuel 8:11-18, the lofty King James version)  But again the people cried to have a king, that they might be like other nations, and that the king might judge them, and fight their battles.  So Samuel returned to God, and this time God shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, well, what the…” or words to that effect, “Let them have their king, I will even pick one out for them.”  So Samuel promised the people they could have their king, and told them to return home.  And God chose a very tall and comely young man by the name of Saul, and Samuel anointed him, with oil, to be king, and we all know how that turned out.  Or if you don’t, read the rest of the Book of Samuel for yourself, or google him.   (Now it is not recorded whether George W Bush was anointed with oil by one of the judges, although we do know that John Ashcroft,  Bush’s Attorney General  and later aspirant to the presidency, anointed himself, with vegetable oil.  Didn’t help though.)
Perhaps instead of thinking of themselves as chosen by God, they should think of how they should live as president if they should happen to achieve that goal, however that is done.  “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”  (Micah 6:8)  “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”  (II Timothy 2:5)
[An aside, but not unpertinent.  Just watched Countdown on Current tv, David Shuster hosting, and he interviewed a comedian, Jamie Filstein, about the phenomenon of Tim Tebow, the Xtian football player, and displayed a poll that showed  54% of  Republicans think God helps Tebow and helps the Broncos to win.   You can catch it here http://current.com/shows/countdown/   Pretty funny and true.
*Do you suppose that Jesus is circumventing His Father in this political event?  Consider, He was the one who chased money-changers out of the temple, he is the one who said it would be difficult for rich men to get to Heaven, now he must be very disturbed  about the devastation wrought by the financial class, and, despairing of the Democrats ever taking on that issue, manipulated this whole Republican campaign in order to get them, in the person of Gingrich and aided by Perry, to expose the whole rotten system.  Do you think?

Valerie has a birthday

Valerie My Activist Daughter, on her 47th Birthday: 

When Valerie was two years old, she took to wandering.  I normally did not worry about my children playing in an unfenced yard in the quiet community of Takoma Park MD; there were always the older ones to look out for the younger, and always enough going on to keep their attention so that they didn’t stray.  At least, (not much) till Valerie.  She would trot off down the street, and crossing streets posed no problem for her.  She ended up at the police station licking ice cream cones often enough that I think she just made a beeline for there.  One Saturday, when it was Sabbath Day at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church down the street, and across one street, she ended up on her tricycle riding around the church yard while parishioners stood around gossiping after church, everyone thinking she belonged to one of them there.  After we moved to a farm on the Shenandoah River near Front Royal, I used to have two little boys her age, four and five, to visit.  One day they all three disappeared.  You can imagine that I was frantic.  I ran around calling them, checked down by the river, in the tent set up by the river, in the barn and down the driveway, and finally called the sheriff.  As I went back outside, I discovered them emerging quite happily from the wooded hills behind the house—Rabbit Mountain we called.  “Oh, we just went for a walk the way we always do.”

Valerie’s fearless wandering may have been prophetic and metaphoric.  She was four-and-a-half when a friend and I started a small preschool in the friend’s house in Front Royal VA.  There was a minor difference of philosophy between Nadine and I, as she was evangelical and really wanted to start a religious school, and I was secular and just wanted to teach children to read.  Still, we resolved our differences somewhat, and agreed that she could read Bible stories to the children as long as I could read the dinosaur book to them.

We had differences of style too; when I was reading to the children, of whom there were five, I gathered them around me on the couch, as I did with my own, while Nadine preferred to stand in front of them in a teacherly style.  One time, in this pose, she asked the children to be very quiet, and demonstrated how they were to take their imaginary keys, lock their lips, and throw the keys away.  Valerie dutifully grabbed her key out of thin air, locked her lips, and put the key in her pocket for future use! 

Nadine was presenting a lesson on how God made things grow.  Before the words were scarcely out of her mouth, “Only God can make flowers grow…” Valerie was saying, “Uh-uh, we can plant the seeds and make flowers grow.”  “Well, yes, but only God can send the rain…”  “Uh-uh, we can water them…”

Things didn’t get much better as she got older.  In fifth grade, after we moved to Montana, she came home one day in despair.  “Mom, today Ms Killdeer was talking about tree rings, and she said that in years when the weather is good, the rings are narrower than in years when the weather is bad, and I said, “Uh-uh, the trees make wider rings in the good years.”  And she said, “There goes Valerie again, acting like she knows it all.”  Valerie felt terrible about having made such a bad impression.

The next day I happened to see a scrap of torn up paper on the floor, and upon reading it, discovered that it appeared to be part of a rough draft of a note of apology to Ms Killdeer.  When she came home, I asked her about it, and she said that, yes, she had written a note of apology to Ms Killdeer, and given it to her that day, saying that she was sorry for contradicting the teacher.  “But,” she said to me, “I know that I was right.”

Now we all know that Valerie has never ceased her metaphoric wandering and her activism; from small beginnings at a tender age, I am sure a book could be written on her forty odd years since then.

Long may she wander; long may she raise her voice.  The world is richer.

Did President Obama keep his promises? Or was I wrong?

In 2008 when we had a Meet-the-Candidates Rally (in Hampshire County WV) in October, candidates were invited to make the case for their election, and some who were unable to attend send surrogates to speak for them, or to read a statement.  I took it upon myself to read my prepared statement for Presidential Candidate Barack Obama.  Now maybe it is time to review that statement, and see how closely the president has come to measuring up to our hopes for change.  I am copying the statement below, with the only change being that I have numbered the items, to make it easier to discuss them; also, 9 & 10 were one item in my original statement.  Did we fail to keep his feet hot enough?

Notes of support for candidacy of Barack Obama in 2008. 

If you are a person who cares about the future of our country, you will vote for Barack Obama.

1.       If you believe in liberal values and progressive action, you will vote for Barack obama.

2.       If you believe in bringing an end to the occupation of Iraq and redirecting the billions being spent on the war to restoring our infrastructure and providing for our citizens, you will vote for Barack Obama.

3.       If you believe in engaging diplomatically with heads of state in order to reduce conflicts around the world and to regain the trust and respect of the world’s peoples, you will vote for Barack Obama.

4.       If you believe in establishing fair trade practices with the peoples of the world, for the mutual benefit of our own and the world’s citizens, you will vote for Barack obama.

5.       If you believe in the urgency of developing plans to provide for equitable sharing of food, water, and energy resources for all the world’s peoples, you will vote for Barack Obama.

6.       If you believe in attacking the problems of energy by reducing dependence on fossil fuels and developing alternative energy sources, you will vote for Barack Obama.

7.       If you believe in the urgency of protecting the environment by reducing pollution, dealing with  the causes of global warming/climate change, protecting threatened and endangered species, reducing the destruction of forests, protecting our waters, you will vote for Barack Obama.

8.       If you believe that a fair taxation program would provide tax relief for the working middle class and increase taxes on the top 2% of the country who have achieved their wealth on the backs of the working class, you will vote for Barack Obama.

9.       If you believe that all citizens should have a fair living wage, that will provide adequate shelter and food, you will vote for Barack Obama.

10.   If you believe that all citizens should have adequate health insurance and medical care, you will vote for Barack Obama.

11.   If you believe that Social Security and Medicare should be strengthened, not privatized, you will vote for Barack Obama.

12.   If you believe veterans deserve access to higher education and appropriate medical care, you will vote for Barack Obama.

13.   If you believe in being informed about the issues you will go to www.barackobama.com, and read about Barack Obama’s proposed policies and solutions, and you will vote for Barack Obama.

And if you do not vote for Barack Obama, and we are treated to another four to eight years of devastating Republican conservative policies, then God have mercy on America.