Tag: politics

And get off my lawn!

I feel like being cantankerous today. So here we go:

  • People cheered when we lost the Olympics? Really? I don’t think it’s vital that the U.S. host the Olympics all the time. Still, I find it odd that people who won’t acknowledge that there’s an entire civilized world (with much older countries than ours) outside our borders got their jollies because “Obama didn’t get the Olympics.” Y’all are kind of strange.
  • People jeered that our president won the Nobel Peace Prize? Seriously? From the Nobel site:
The right to submit proposals for the Nobel Peace Prize shall, by statute, be enjoyed by:

1. Members of national assemblies and governments of states;
2. Members of international courts;
3. University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes;
4. Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
5. Board members of organizations who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
6. Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1) and
7. Former advisers appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
 

Be PROUD that a U.S. leader was chosen for this honor.  And kudos to Obama for pledging to donate the cash portion of the prize. 

  • I’m so SICK of reading insults to successful writers from other writers. There were a few days on Facebook when it seemed like that was all I read every day from author after author. Advice: If you don’t like a writer, don’t read him or her. Do you know how petty and jealous and bitter you sound with these sweeping declarations that X is the WORST writer ever and is completely undeserving of success? Thank you, book police. The rest of us are so glad we have you to protect us from these terrible writers. Oh, wait. Apparently we’re not, as millions are still reading the books you denounce.
  • Closely related: my confession. But I’m saving that for another post.

Hump Day Happy

 


Ayuh, it’s a moose, all right. Because a moose reminds me of Maine.
Today, Maine has struck a blow for equal rights and made me a happy person. 

If you want to be happy but can’t move to Maine right now, just comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25, and Mr. Moose will find you something from this book to be happy about.

Button Sunday

On this day in 1902, poet and author Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes is among my favorite poets. Every day, I see one of his poems framed next to a picture of my late friend Steve R that sits on the bookcase behind me. It’s a beautiful poem, but not the subject of this post.

I found an Inauguration Day group on Flickr. It contains several thousand photos, so I set it to slideshow one day last week and watched pictures scroll by while I did other things at my desk. I love looking at photos of Washington, D.C., any time. I know what it is to be one among a crowd of people on the National Mall after having been there as a volunteer and panel maker in 1996 with the NAMES Quilt. To see in every direction buildings and monuments that are so familiar from a lifetime of pictures. To be in the middle of it with thousands of people.

Although what I really wanted to study as I watched these Inauguration Day photos were people’s faces–not famous people or politicians or celebrities, just average people–I often paused to look at things.

A ledge full of cups: Starbucks, McDonald’s coffee, along with plastic Pepsi and Coke bottles, empty juice containers.

Baby carriages. Flags and posters. Newspapers. Banners and sweatshirts with slogans. Cameras and iPhones. Blankets, bags, and gloves. Binoculars. Name tags. Subway passes.

Hats pulled so low and scarves wound with such determination against the cold that sometimes people were little more than eyes bearing witness.

And buttons. Lots of buttons. Including one that answered this poem by Langston Hughes, and in so doing, made poetry beautifully relevant in the national dialog:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?


An unexpected bonus

Sometime in December, I carelessly broke three of my glasses. Over our twenty years of marriage, Tom and I have naturally lost dishes to breakage, but probably never three at one time. Since the traditional twentieth anniversary gift is china, last June he replaced a half-dozen bowls in our china pattern. I figured it was a year when an appropriate Christmas gift to myself would be bringing our iced tea and claret wine stemware back to a dozen each.

I was pretty sure I could find the glasses online. Fostoria has been around a long time, and mine is a fairly common pattern. I was delighted to find Replacements, Ltd., who not only sells my glasses and more than 300,000 other dinnerware patterns, but they have them at different price levels. If your dinnerware is older (as my glasses are), Replacements, Ltd. often stocks older pieces that will better match yours–and at a reduced price. Perfect!

I was completely pleased when I received my order. After mixing them in with my older glasses, I can’t pick out the new ones.

I’m not getting paid for this endorsement, and normally I wouldn’t bore you with it. Who cares about my dishes, right? BUT–what I do care about, and I hope you do, too, is what kind of companies I do business with. Located in Greensboro, NC, Replacements, Ltd. was founded by Bob Page in 1981 with just fifteen patterns. And today, I found out that Replacements, Ltd. is a Bronze Level National Corporate Sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign. This means a company has shown a commitment to improving the lives of LGBT Americans in the workplace by scoring 85 percent or higher on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

The Compound follows a tight budget, and replacing those glasses was a luxury. It makes me feel good to know our dollars went to a company that supports a fair workplace. The names of other companies with a high CEI can be found here.

Cheers!