Tag: politics

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I’m a little late with wishes for the day. I was busy witnessing some of the best and worst behaviors of humans as I went about my errands over the past few hours.

That seems appropriate, actually. The halting progress of civil rights in our nation showed us at our best and worst. This year, the day seems more poignant because tomorrow our first black president will take his oath of office. For me, it feels like a milestone when we should stop looking back and start looking forward. And when I say that, I include my fervent readiness to shake the last eight years out of my brain and move toward a better future for all of us.

In the meanwhile, I’m on a bit of a cleansing mission. There are so many nagging duties I’ve gotten out of the way over the past month–financial, physical, emotional–and I’ve decided to detox my body. I’ve upped the water intake, added twenty daily ounces of green tea and about eight ounces of orange juice a day, and I’m going to omit meat for a few days. This really isn’t a hardship for me, as I’m a passionate raw and cooked veggie lover, but I don’t want to deny The Compound menfolk any culinary pleasures. Some nights I’ll probably cook two different meals.

But for tonight, they’re my guinea pigs. I’ve created something. I don’t know if it’s a pie or a quiche or what. Leeks sweated down in butter, nestled among thinly sliced potatoes, with a milk/egg mixture lightly flavored with nutmeg, salt, and pepper, poured into a crust, then topped with the thinnest layer of grated Gruyère cheese. It’s baking now, too late for me to throw in the garlic I’m wondering about. I sort of adapted the recipe from several I found online. It’s an adventure!

Also, because I know Lindsey’s going to care, here’s a photo of some things I picked up today.


Tools for cooking and for wrangling logs!

My baby heater that I keep in my office sparked and hissed at me today. It was very dramatic, and I don’t do drama, so into the trash it went. Even though Mercury’s retrograde, I got a new one, because as long as I can keep my feet warm, I can keep the thermostat down in my house.

Finally, in the category of entertainment, I’ve made this confession to my family and a few close friends, but now I think you all should know. There was a time I mocked Tori Spelling with the best of them. But having recently finished this book:

I’m totally in like with her. So I’m really excited that Tim just found this for us to indulge in:

Me, Tori, and popcorn. Sounds like a great way to spend an evening. If my cooking improv doesn’t kill us.

Are you in Houston? My Friday Soapbox

You might be interested in this if you’re in the Houston area tomorrow (Saturday, January 10):

———————————————————
From IMPACT HOUSTON
Upcoming Protest
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009
Time: 12:30pm – 2:30pm
Location: The Sidewalks of West Gray Street
Street: West Gray St., between Shepherd Dr. and Waugh Dr.
City/Town: Houston, TX

Participants will line up on the sidewalk on West Gray Street, between Shepherd Drive and Waugh Drive, starting at Shepherd. This will be a more or less silent demonstration, focused on DOMA, federal marriage rights, and same-sex marriage (or a lack thereof) in Texas.

IMPACT encourages people to make signs listing the different legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, none of which are available to same-sex couples in Texas following the 2005 passing of the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

IMPACT suggests that everyone wear black so that participants stand out and have a uniform appearance. It’s important to note that this is a peaceful protest and those participating must stay on the sidewalks.
———————————————————-

I read with interest what Bob Barr, former Republican representative from Georgia who co-authored the Defense of Marriage Act, says now about DOMA:

In effect, DOMA’s language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don’t want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the heterosexual definition of marriage for purposes of federal laws — including, immigration, Social Security survivor rights and veteran[s’] benefits — has become a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state to choose to recognize same-sex unions.


Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.

Call me skeptical, but I suspect that Barr is less interested in “the people themselves” than another run at the presidency as a Libertarian. I agree with him that DOMA is just bad federal law, but U.S. history has taught me, a descendant of people who fought on the losing side of that war in the 1860s, that when it comes to protecting a minority from the ill will of the majority, “states rights” is code for “stay out of my cotton-pickin’ business.”

I’m not sure what ambition is driving attorney Ken Starr, who not only wants the rest of us and a significant number of Californians to stay out of California’s cotton-pickin’ business, but would also like to take away the freedom previously granted to 18,000 California couples–a number that wouldn’t fill even half of LA’s Memorial Coliseum–because they just went MAD with their desire to have a shot at more than 1,400 equal rights and protections including:

Status as “next-of-kin” for hospital visits and medical decisions
Right to make a decision about the disposal of loved one’s remains
Crime victims’ recovery benefits
Domestic violence protection orders
Judicial protections and immunity
Automatic inheritance in the absence of a will
Joint filing of tax returns
Wrongful death benefits for surviving partner and children
Bereavement or sick leave to care for partner or children
Public safety officer’s death benefits
Joint parental rights of children
Joint adoption
Spousal veterans’ benefits
Social Security
Medicare
Immigration and residency for partners from other countries
Child support
Joint insurance plans
Tax credits including: Child tax credit, Hope and lifetime learning credits
Deferred compensation for pension and IRAs
Estate and gift tax benefits
Welfare and public assistance
Joint housing for elderly
Credit protection
Medical care for survivors and dependents of certain veterans

After doing a bunch of math that I won’t inflict on you, I estimate that the number of gays and lesbians living in the U.S. who may want to marry is about the same as the population of Phoenix. That doesn’t sound like a large voting block, which may be why some people think it’s okay to deny them equal rights. Am I the only one who thinks it’s crazy to spend billions of dollars to incite mob rule against about 0.005 percent of the total U.S. population?

However, it’s the very smallness of their number that makes it so vital that we accord and protect their equal rights. So I reckon I’ll be standing on a West Gray sidewalk tomorrow to demonstrate for everyone to have those 1,400-plus rights and the opportunity to get three deviled egg plates as wedding gifts.

Button Sunday

Tim talked here about what we did on Saturday. You know my views: We are all equal, deserving of the same rights under the law. My favorite moment of the day: The speaker asked all the straight people there to hold up their signs. When I said out loud, “I don’t have a sign!”, the lesbian next to us handed me hers. I raised it high with a lump in my throat.


A favorite photo of Tim.


Proper use of who’s and whose: It does an editor good.

Clicking on either of those photos will enlarge them, and you can also go “up to gallery” to see the rest of the photos.

Green, green grass of home

Y’all probably remember this pre-election photo and EZ worrying about whether Tim’s grass would grow in our barren, post-Ike-treeless patch of The Compound grounds:

Last night, a few of us were sitting on the front porch talking because the mosquitoes had some kind of lapse in judgment and forgot to feast on us. Tim asked if I’d considered taking down the Obama sign. In fact, I hadn’t kept it up as a political statement, although every time I’ve seen it since last Tuesday night, a little bit of my insides have relaxed some more. Even with serious losses in several states on issues that matter to me (Proposition 8–don’t think I haven’t been finding ways to protest, even if I haven’t been shrieking about it on LJ–letters, e-mails, finding out which products to stop buying from companies that promote and finance intolerance and inequality), I believe better days are ahead. (And I’m bemused that the neocon pundits think information such as in the Charlie Rose Newsweek interview are going to scare me. HELLO? I like my presidents self-aware, intelligent, slow to react, and confident.)

ENOUGH WITH THE PARENTHETICALS.

The grass is certainly greener on this side of the fence lately.

And the sign is in the garage now.

Hump Day Happy

You know those moments in your life that you look back on and remember exactly what you were doing when you heard about [fill in the blank]. I’ve got a few of those in both happy and sad columns But Tuesday night…

I did try hard to stay away from the news. Tim even made appointments for us to get our hair cut with Larry, because that’s always a happy couple of hours with someone whose company we enjoy.

 


Tim, during the process… 


Pile o’ Tim hair.

 

Yeah, I know you want “after” photos, but I can’t give you all the good stuff at once.

I did some errands and drove by several polling places hoping to get photos of voters in long lines. However, that early voting thing really works out for Houston, because there were no lines. Later, Tim and I went back out with the dogs, and as we drove down West Gray, I got this shot of some people who caught me in the act and seemed okay with it.

 

I read and enjoyed your comments about your voting experiences on my last post, then I started cooking dinner to stay away from the TV. I began having all kinds of computer issues, so obsessively checking for news online wasn’t an option. I also had my news-avoiding movie selection at the ready: My Best Friend’s Wedding, because I haven’t watched it for a while and Julia and the so-hot Dermot Mulroney are always a good diversion.

We ate. We watched our soap, a little CNN, a little Fox, a little MSNBC. I took some phone calls. I couldn’t forget the last two presidential campaigns, so I refused to be lured into anything like confidence and especially not complacency. I was more than willing to watch the one-hour Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert special, because I figured it would be at least a couple of hours before we were anywhere near hearing an outcome.

Then arrived that moment, the one I’ll always remember, when after goofing around and trading barbs, Jon Stewart quietly said: “At eleven o’clock at night Eastern standard time, the president of the United States is Barack Obama.” It took me a minute to realize he wasn’t kidding, and I immediately started crying, and it was quite some time before I could stop. I’ve never felt such a profound sense of history. I know many of my friends are skeptical and don’t feel the way I feel, but this is a day I didn’t think would come in my lifetime, a moment when everything seems to move forward and stop looking back, and I wish my parents could share it with me.

Both my phones were ringing, I knocked my can of Dr. Pepper over, the dogs were crazy, and Tim arrived to say that John McCain was expected to give his concession speech within minutes. And when he did concede, I was so proud of him. It was exactly the kind of moving and gracious speech we hope for from a statesman. I looked at that crowd of disappointed McCain supporters, and I understood exactly how they felt. However, in my heart, I truly believe what President-Elect Obama promised in his speech. He will be a president for ALL of us, he will listen to ALL of us, particularly those with differing opinions. This will be such a dramatic change from the last eight years.

Thank you to everyone who called and commented and sent e-mails–from all over the world! We have a lot of work ahead of us, and if there’s anything I could wish for, it would be that instead of divisiveness, we’d all start acting like friends and neighbors again. The following is my best attempt to use what I had on hand to represent a spirit of unity and to show that happiness is NOT a partisan issue. We can always use more happiness and more than a little silliness, so please comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25, and the elephant and donkey will work together to find your answer.

 

Feel free

I was reading Joe.My.God’s blog and he invited his readers to comment about how their voting experience had gone. Since only a few of my readers ever comment, and a lot of you are not in the U.S., I can’t expect but a few answers compared to the hundreds Joe will get. However, feel free to comment on any of these questions Joe posed:

Tell me about your voting experience (and where you are). How long was your wait? Did you witness anybody giving up on the line? How was the mood of your fellow voters? Did the voting machine work properly? Are you confident your vote was recorded properly?

I voted Sunday before last. I had no wait. The poll workers were organized and pleasant. My machine worked. There’s no reason to doubt that my vote was recorded properly since this state is so red-locked that I’m the only one who takes my vote seriously. NOTHING would stop me from voting, however.

Bonus Button Tuesday

On this day in 1879, Will Rogers was born in Oklahoma. Humorist, columnist, radio personality, actor, and social and political commentator with a heart, Rogers once said, “I joked about every prominent man in my lifetime, but I never met one I didn’t like.” You can read more of his quotes here.

Whatever else you do today, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to:

Button Sunday

Back in late July when I went out to visit my friend Pat in Small Paradise, she gave me a button that she’d gotten many years before when serving as a delegate. Do you know how torturous it was to wait until the Sunday before the election to share this?

I wasn’t born into this world as a Yellow Dog Democrat, so I must thank Nixon and his cabinet and conspirators, the Reagans, the Bush family, and especially Dick Cheney for transforming me into one. Good job!

The Ford family gets a free pass.

Done

Late afternoon, looking east on West Gray, the sky was a vibrant blue.

Looking west, the sun had my eyes running.

Believe it or not, I knew who most of these people are and their positions:

before I went inside and cast my ballot.

Despise me if you must–I don’t feel that way toward those who disagree with me–
because afterward, I swung by campaign headquarters to pick up something for the yard:


where EZ, a single-issue dog, wonders,
Can these guys help Tim’s new grass grow?

Dare to dream, EZ. Dare to dream.