Tag Archives: Current Events

November 6, 2012

Freewrite: Today I’d Prefer Cake

 Getting back to the root of blogging with uninterrupted, narcissistic rambling.

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I recently took a series of 6 quizzes to find out what type of bird I am (long story). As it turns out, I’m a mallard duck and sometimes a crow, two of the most boring birds in the history of birds. I don’t know why it’s bothering me, but it is. Why can’t I be some sort of beautiful exotic bird? I’d give you an example, but I don’t know any beautiful exotic birds. This is probably why I’m only a mallard duck.

Truthfully I used to hate birds, mostly because of their vicious attacks while I mowed the lawn as a kid. (Have you ever been air bombed by a hungry robin? It’s terrifying). But now birds are on everything, somehow incepting themselves into my psyche and causing me to buy overpriced bags and hats with bird prints on them. I admit they are kind of cute despite being a symbol for hipster hearts full of wanderlust, but that’s not the point. (Obviously you’ve already seen Portlandia’s “Put A Bird On It.” I don’t even need to link to it).

I still don’t like bats, which is annoying because not liking bats is terribly unoriginal. I tried to explain to my friend why I don’t like bats with a story of when a swarm of them attacked me at 2am in the middle of a kibbutz, but she was unaffected. Mostly she wondered what a Kibbutz was and how this was relevant to my thoughts on birds. I tried to explain a Kibbutz is just like her house, except there are a lot of Jews and possibly a dog breeder, but that didn’t help because really it’s nothing like her house.

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I received six robo-calls yesterday, two this morning, and a few while I was sleeping. Mitt Romney, specifically, left me 3 voicemails in the middle of the night asking for my vote. He should know I’m not into needy guys. If he wants my attention, he should ignore me and flirt with the other girl.

I didn’t learn this until recently, but apparently Pennsylvania is a swing state again. Yesterday I had the idea that of instead of calling, team Obama and team Romney should drop off baskets of assorted cheeses to win my favor, but I’ve changed my mind. Today I’m in the mood for cake.

In all seriousness, I don’t mind the phone calls. Putting my phone on silent and deleting an automated message wastes no more time than clicking another pin on Pinterest. What I do mind is not voting.

Here’s something: If one person from each voting booth had voted differently in 1960, Richard Nixon would have become President instead of JFK. In 2000, President George W. Bush beat out Vice President Al Gore by just 500 votes. Think of the number of people in your high school class; 500 of those people could have decided that election.

Here’s what political marketers learn from people who don’t vote: Nothing.

If you don’t vote because you’re disappointed with your choices, annoyed by political manipulation, or merely turned off by the process, you’ve opted out of the marketplace. Some people don’t vote because they don’t want to feel responsible for the person who wins. Others don’t want to live with the disappointment of voting for someone who loses. Both of these reasons ignore the marketing reality that not voting doesn’t make marketing or politics go away. It merely changes the person the marketers are trying to please.

Women, please vote. We’ve fought for this right. Men, you too. For every person in this world who can’t vote, who doesn’t have a voice–vote. It’s a privilege. It matters.

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Vote, by Spook Handy

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June 5, 2012

Things I Missed When I Wasn’t On The Internet

While I was away, friends and also some loyal readers were kind enough to keep me in the Internet loop by texting me news updates, snail mailing me Twitter feeds, and sending me emails of Things I Missed to return to in June. For these kind acts, they all deserve a prize.

I’m regifting some to you here, because sharing is caring.

Articles Worth Reading

Bigfoot And Bread by The Shoofly Project

Putting a voice to the inner critic, to view its humor and to rob its power over your work..

“You will never writing anything interesting because you won’t remember how you did it before, 
not that it was good before anyway.
You will ultimately fail because you have no good ideas. 
Boring. Been done. Said before.
You will make the wrong choice.
You will only ever make bad baked beans and big mistakes.
You will never write with humor, only mediocre melancholy.
And you will always believe they are better than you.

Probably because they are. They can all make omelets after all.“

Go Find A Little Store by Elizabeth from E Tells Tales

Why you should go find a little store in your town. “Go find a little store in your town. They’ve probably got their family name on the sign. There are probably only three people working inside, all related. They know things about your town–they’re the keepers, just like Mike and I do for Everett, these little stores do for towns.”

All Right Then, I’ll Go To Hell by Rachel Held Evans

A beautiful and moving comparison between Huckleberry Finn’s revelation about slaves and our understanding of scripture.

“A part of me agrees. I want to be faithful to the inspired words of the Bible, not bend them to fit my own desires and whims. Being a person of faith means trusting God’s revelation, even when the path it reveals is not comfortable.  

But another part of me worries that a religious culture that asks its followers to silence their conscience is just the kind of religious culture that produces $200 rewards for runaway slaves. The Bible has been “clear” before, after all—in support of a flat and stationary earth, in support of wiping out infidels, in support of  manifest destiny, in support of Indian removal, in support of anti-Semitism, in support of slavery, in support of “separate but equal,” in support of constitutional amendments banning interracial marriage. 

In hindsight, it all seems so foolish, such an obvious abuse of Scripture.”  

A Gay Christian’s Response To Pastor Charles Worley by the Thought Catalog 

“I had a way, I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers, but I couldn’t get it past the Congress,” the pastor continues. ““Build a great, big, large fence — 50 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified ‘til they can’t get out. Feed ‘em.  And you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out. Do you know why? They can’t reproduce.”

Weighing In On The Time Magazine Cover by Lady Lee In Process

My thoughts exactly. “That is not what breastfeeding looks like. Anyone who has ever breastfed or been around someone breastfeeding a baby child knows this. Everything about the photo looks like it was directly influenced by the person behind the camera…”

Mommy Wars: The Prequel
Ina May Gaskin and the Battle for at-Home Births

It’s long, so long. But if you find home births interesting, it’s a great read. This lady delivers breach babies…at home. Crazy. “It’s not that simple, of course, and it is unfortunate that the choices and the rhetoric around birth — like many of the choices and rhetoric around motherhood in general — are so polarized. It should be possible both to have a baby in a place that doesn’t have financial and legal incentives to medicalize a low-risk pregnancy and to still have immediate access to top-level care if it’s needed.“

Laughs Worth Laughing

Downton Sixbey Part Two

Downton Abbey fan? You will die laughing at these parodies by Jimmy Fallon. If you haven’t watched Episode One, do. Thank me later.

Honest Toddler: The Blog & The Twitter Feed

The Twitter feed is priceless. I can’t read it while breastfeeding because I wake the baby up giggling.

Mommy’s putting on makeup for some impromptu Facebook photos. “We’re doing great, everyone!!!”

Mommy doesn’t make herself a plate. She just stands next to me like a hyena waiting for scraps.

Something about seeing the cat tremble in fear as I walk by makes me want to give him a big hug. I love this kitty cat.

Mama took kitty kitty away. No more hugs. She said cats need air and breathing. What is she a veterinarian? :(

Planted the sunglasses in the kitty litter. They still knew it was me.

Cries Worth Crying

I’m sure you’ve already seen it. I cried like a baby until the groom popped out. Then I laughed. Not exactly what I pictured…

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January 17, 2012

Prudence

A New York Times article on pregnancy and mortality in Africa.

Not a call to action or any sort of guilt trip; it just stuck with me after I read her story–making my chest tight and giving me that vague sense of sadness you get when someone you’ve never met suffers something unimaginable.

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Prudence Lemokouno was lying motionless on a bed in the bleak hospital here, her stomach swelled with a fetus that had just died, her eyes occasionally flickering with fright but mostly dull and empty.

Dr. Pascal Pipi, the lone doctor in the public hospital, said she had a few more hours to live, and then she would join the half-million women a year who die around the world in pregnancy and childbirth.

Her husband, Alain Awona, was beside himself. ‘Save my wife,’ he pleaded. “My baby is dead. Save my wife…” {continue reading Save My Wife}

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Thank you to Becca for sharing.

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March 23, 2011

Peacebuilder’s Dilemma

My good friend Galen wrote an article on the peacebuilder’s dilemma in response to the increasingly bleak situation in Libya. Read it here.

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October 21, 2008

Where’s the Peanut Butter?

Obama has a clear lead in the polls, yet the doubt still persists: will America really elect a black man for president? Though a viable force, McCain may not be the largest threat to Obama’s campaign. A few days ago, the Washington Post reported that researchers conducted an experiment in which the test group considered both McCain and Obama to be American, but in the groups’ subconscious test, McCain was perceived more American. This raises the question, then, on how much of our subconscious prejudices will infect the voting booth, much less our daily endeavors. Regardless of how hard we try, we are not alone in our own consciousness. We have company, an invisible partner who has strong reactions about the world we may not consciously agree with.

Because America has centuries of slavery and racial discrimination still haunting the history books, we are highly sensitive to even the slightest indication of racism, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, has done research showing that when self-protective instincts are primed, simply by turning down the lights in a room, for example, white people who are normally tolerant become unconsciously more likely to detect hostility in the faces of black men with neutral expressions. “Sometimes nonconscious effects can be bigger in sheer magnitude than conscious ones,” says Dr. Schaller, “because we can’t moderate stuff we don’t have conscious access to, and the goal stays active.”

If we stop to consider the reasons behind every action and decision both monumental and slight, it is exhausting. However being attentive to ones “silent voice” is necessary, especially when dealing with important decisions such as who to vote for, even if the results of our actions are out of our control.

This reflection is not fail safe. Consider Humphrey, the portly mouse that lives under my refrigerator. Though Humphrey may be a terrific little creature who has no intentions of biting my toes or nesting in my hair while I sleep, I am still convinced he should die. If I pause to evaluate why I am certain of this, the only ideas I can muster involve visions of Humphrey crawling all over my skin. Horrors! Further, if I try to think of why I believe in other more central and personal ideals like pacifism or the importance of really good Mexican food, my reasons become clouded by memories and a biased self image. It is difficult to think about thinking, even more difficult to think about why we’re thinking what we do.

In an increasing age of narcissism, Oprah, and blogs, Americans are not afraid to let their thoughts, feelings, and emotions bubble over into everyone’s laps. And I am not, in any way, condoning any increase of our egos. Self awareness is important, but a self centered world view is disastrous. What I am curious about is why we think the way we do and if we can do anything about it. I hope we are ready for a change in government; for a change in healthcare, our foreign policies, and in our role as a peaceful nation. Yet how many of us can say we are truly open to change if it adjusts our pocketbooks, our habitats, or worse—our subconscious. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not one to experience change easily. I had a conniption when Mom moved the peanut butter to a different cupboard while I was away at college, and just thinking about having to relocate all my belongings to yet another cheap apartment raises my anxiety.

Aristotle said we are what we repeatedly do, but how do we know what we mean to do or what is by accident? I am very certain my parents did not mean to raise an outspoken unathletic free-spirited liberal, just as I am sure many Americans do not mean to be racist voters. Our unintentional actions are inevitable; it’s finding the faulty ones that is important. This voting season, I hope we can muster up enough strength to examine exactly why we are voting for our chosen candidate, whether it’s John McCain, Barack Obama, or Santa Claus.

Let’s make this one count.

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