BiddiesInMyBrain

I Really Should Update More Often...

...because when I don't, the updates become little monsters!

Let's see. Hmmm...

I've been up most of the week this week working on creating and modifying bibliographies dealing with 1877-1939 US history... and the next step is to annotate them. (ARRRRGH!). That part terrifies me. Pretty much, I will be spending the next six months doing nothing but reading - and creating incredibly extensive and cross-referenced notes - for the comps I will be taking in August. Oh, and I have a draft of a portion of my dissertation due week after next. This part *is* doable, actually, since Spring Break is here, and I don't have any teaching obligations this coming week.

However, I *do* have grading obligations... oh, and how. Wow. Don't ask.

Physical therapy is probably the best thing I have ever done for my own health other than actually lose the nearly 100 pounds I have lost over the past five years. I am having the most wonderful - and wonder-filled - experience doing this. I am finding I can exercise and push my body hard without hurting it - or hurting at the time (or even much afterward) - but release those endorphins and really strengthen my core and myself as a whole - and do a whole lot of good. This is something I *know* I will be able to keep up after actual PT is over - they are not only giving me exercises, but teaching me how to work with my body *and* how to work with the machines and weights and to determine what is healthy muscle movement and what is unhealthy. I am *listening to* and *watching* my body very, very closely. It's amazing. And I feel good for it. Huzzah!

LOVING teaching still... and I just realized today that I have now taught for five semesters... nine rosters... one course. Some 270 students. I keep seeing students all over campus who know me and say hi... and I feel like an idiot for not knowing their names - but now I realize that I shouldn't expect myself to remember that many students' names over that long a time - and many of my first students have already graduated!! I'm very fortunate to learn everyone's name in a semester - and push myself to do so. Am loving the interaction this semester, too. It seems that the longer I teach, the more comfortable I am with interaction and give-and-take in the classroom. It makes it exciting and fun and ... my, do I ever enjoy it. Next fall I plan to teach first half American history (pre-1877) and will be writing a whole new course's-worth of lectures... and while I am excited about that, it terrifies me; I plan to take comps just before the beginning of the semester! But, it will be a new part of a continuing adventure I am enjoying more than anything I have ever done. What a terrific life I am leading right now in that respect!

Turned in a bunch of stuff today which may lead to a great deal of fruition in the next month and a half. We'll see. :::watch this space:::

Have completely forgotten about photography lately... and things are blooming and popping and looking gorgeous; I just don't have time for it. It really, really stinks, because I miss having the opportunity to look at things through the lens. ::sigh:: Can't do everything.

Still only running on one computer at the moment; the other was hit by the worst virus/trojan attack I have ever seen, and will require a complete scrub of the machine. However, see above for time constraints. I hope to get to it this week.

Also on my list of things to get to this week is a revamp of the Graduate History Association website. I've really been trying to push forward with GHA this semester... but comps stuff (and all the assorted health things - surgeries, procedures, etc) have gotten in the way. Hmmm. Maybe I should set up a meeting for the first Friday after we return from Break? Hmmmm. :::sending myself an e-mail:::

Need to renew all my student memberships in everything... all my professional journals ... crud. Everything has lapsed. Crud! At least I have a few lifetime memberships in a few things... but everything else? It's a matter of outlaying money... and who has it these days?

I am very busy at church as I am able to be, though I have chosen to leave the choir for myriad reasons; I think my time and talents are best served elsewhere for now. I'm thoroughly enjoying the POW women's group - thoroughly enjoying it to the point that it is a sacred day on my monthly calendar; the only thing which would keep me from it is if Crash ended up in the hospital (I think I would drag MY sorry butt out of the hospital for it!!). Seriously. And I have been going to monthly Bible study (stop snickering!) and some other adult religious education things as they come along. I simply need the time away from school, even though I can't really afford the time away from school, if you know what I mean. Church is my sanity time - and I can't lose sight of that.

There's really not much else to say... well, there is, but if I tried, I would be here a night and a day and still not be caught up. This at least gets us somewhere.

I miss writing here as a matter of exercise and practical spirituality; this has been a place I have come now for some five years. Until the past several months, I had made it a daily mandatory thing to come here and write - even if only a tiny thing - something about something. I really want to get back to that. I think things really slipped when my grandma died and she was no longer there to read every day - that connection was lost and I went adrift in many ways ... but then, there are others who e-mail me regularly asking me what's going on in my life that I am not updating... I think that is really kind of awesome to have friends like y'all! So, I will try and get back here on a more daily basis. The entries may be short, they may be terse, but I am going to try to make it a spiritual practice to at least write a little tiny bit every day.

Love you guys, and miss you. And I will do my best to come a-visiting to your blogs a little more often, too. I really do miss catching up on your lives as well.

Laura

Ya think?? LOL

It's not as though I haven't made my views known... :::laughing::: They have me pretty well pegged...


My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 6.87, Libertarian: 5.06

Political Spectrum Quiz
My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -4.81

Political Spectrum Quiz
My Culture War Stance
Score: -8.99

Political Spectrum Quiz

Read It. Never Forget It. Teach the Children.

From Keith Olbermann, via Daily Kos:

George Walker Bush.
43rd president of the United States.
first ever with a criminal record.
our third story tonight,
his presidency: eight years in eight minutes.

early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda
for the bombing of the USS Cole
Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke
had a plan to take down Al Qaeda.
instead by February the NSC
had already discussed invading Iraq,
and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.

by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration
and a list of companies.
Al Qaeda?
Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
not a big reader.

August 6, 2001
a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
"Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote
all right, you've covered your ass now.

next month Clarke requests
using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden
the Pentagon and CIA
say no.

September 11th
Bush remains seated for several minutes
to avoid scaring school children
by getting up and leaving.
he then flies around the country
and promises quote a full scale investigation to find
those folks who did it

Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets
we've got to do Iraq.
when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora
it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape
Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis
sympathetic to the Taliban
Bin Laden
gets away

in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator
Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan
so he can invade Iraq.
one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony
that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
later explains quote we cherry picked things
to make it look like the president
had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda
they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda

July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is
fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam
January 03
Bush and Blair agree to invade in March
Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided
telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors
fly it over Iraq and provoke a response
a pretext for invasion

the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops
fired
the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion
fired
the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie
smeared
his wife's covert status
exposed
the White House liars who did it
and covered it up
not fired
one convicted
Bush commutes his sentence

then in Iraq, stuff happens:
Iraq's army, disbanded
the government de-Baathified
200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just
lost
foreign mercenaries immunized from justice
political hacks run the Green Zone
religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes
Abu Ghraib
the insurgency
Al Qaeda in Iraq

other stuff does not happen:
WMD
post-war planning
body armor
vehicular armor

the payoff?
oil
and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
tries to raise their healthcare fees
blocks the new G.I. Bill
and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
with the Military Commissions Act
public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
The Geneva Conventions
FISA
sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department

secret star chambers for terrorism suspects,
overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
denying habeas corpus,
overturned by Boumediene v Bush.
200 renditionings
sleep deprivation
abuse

Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing
that it would jeopardize convictions
out of 550 at Gitmo
hundreds ultimately go free with no charges
dozens are tortured
eight fatally
three are convicted

on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
without due process
without bail
without court dates
without a single charge of terrorism

it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
weakening emission standards for mercury
and 650 different toxic chemicals
regulators shared drugs
and their beds
with industry reps
the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up
because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell
was sleeping with their boss
McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon
and was found negligent
after nine miners died in the collapse there

Mr. Bush's hands off
as Enron blacks out California
doubling electric bills
after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure

the blackouts end

Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high
until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations

and the prices fall

deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
created a housing bubble
creating the mortgage crisis
creating then a credit crisis
devastating industries that rely on credit
from student loans to car dealers

firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
those that did got
seven hundred billion dollars
no strings, no transparency
no idea whether it worked

unlike the auto bailout
which cut workers' salaries.
a GOP memo called it
a chance to punish unions

but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons
did not stand to profit
investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
for missed warnings about Columbia
Bush administration convicts include
sex offenders at Homeland Security
convicted liars
every kind of thief in the calendar
and if you count things that were not prosecuted
the vice president of the United States actually
shot a man in the face

the man apologized.

Mr. Bush faked the truth
with paid propaganda in Iraq
on his education policy

tried to silence the truth about global warming
rocket fuel in our water
industry influence on energy policy

politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA,
the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife
and the FDA

his lies
exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down
"complete BS" the treasury secretary said
of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.

Rice's mushroom cloud
Powell's mobile labs
Iraq and 9-11
Jack Abramoff
Jessica Lynch

Pat Tillman
Pat Tillman again
Pat Tillman, again.

the air at Ground Zero
most responders still suffering respiratory problems.

global warming
carbon emissions
a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
faith based initiatives
the cost of medicare reform
fired US attorneys
politically synchronized terror alerts

the surge causing insurgents to switch sides
that abortion causes breast cancer
that his first recession began under Clinton
that he did not wiretap without warrants
that we do not torture.

that American citizen John Walker Lindh's rights
were not violated
that he refused the right to counsel

heckuva job Brownie
some survivors still in trailers
New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population

the lie that no one could have predicted the economic crisis
except
the economists who did
no one could have predicted 9-11 except
one ass-covering CIA analyst
or thirty
no one could have predicted the levee breach
except literally
Mr. Bill
in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina

Bush actually admitted that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld
because he did not want to tell the truth.
look it up.

all of it
all of it and more leaving us with
ten trillion in debt
to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
the Iraq War
a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut

median income down two thousand dollars
three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
going to the richest one percent
unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent

the Dow, down from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven
to eighty two hundred seventy seven
six million now more in poverty
seven million more now without health care

buying toxic goods from China
deadly cribs
outsourcing security to Dubai
still unsecure in our ports
and at our nuclear plants
more dependent on foreign oil
out of the international criminal court
off the anti ballistic missle treaty
military readiness and standards down

with two unfinished wars
a nuclear North Korea
disengaged from the Palestinian problem
destabilizing eastern european diplomacy with
anti missile plans
and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia

2000 miles of Appalachian streams
destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
at his last G-8 summit,
he actually bid farewell to other world leaders
saying quote—goodbye from the world's greatest polluter

consistently undermining historic American reverence
for the institutions that empower us
education, now "academic elites"
and the law, "activist judges"
capping jury awards

and Bin Laden?
living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven
created by a truce endorsed and defended by George W. Bush

and among all the gifts he gave to Bin Laden
the most awful, the most damaging not just to America
but to the American ideal
was to further Bin Laden's goal
by making us act out of fear rather than fortitude

leaving us with precious little to cling to tonight
save the one thing that might yet suffice:

hope.

2008 Meme

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
– Took a MARVELOUS couple of train rides; one in the Royal Gorge and one on the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad. 

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
– I don’t make new year resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
– I swear we have had the most fertile church in Memphis this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
– Yes. A friend who was three years younger than I... she died of a brain aneurysm.

5. What countries did you visit?
– The United States and my inner self.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
– My ABD. My health. An electric car (per Crash). A flat screen TV.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
– 11/4. Obama's election. I have never cried tears of joy over an election. Ever. I hope they were not in vain.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
– Finishing my coursework? My teaching?

9. What was your biggest failure?
– Ugh. Not performing to my ability this last semester in my coursework.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
– Oh geez. We are *so* no going there right now.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
– My new laptop. The new CH/A. The new plumbing. The refinanced mortgage.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
– My students - most of them, anyway!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
– Politicians in general (don't get me started). Certain relatives.

14. Where did most of your money go?
– I swear it went to healthcare, but the piechart on Quicken says other bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
– Teaching. Our trip to Colorado.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
– Hmmm... one song? I have no idea.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?

- Happier. I'm always happier!

b) thinner or fatter?

- Thinner.

c) richer or poorer?

- I think we're about even on this. We lost a lot of our assets for retirement... but we've paid off a lot of bills... so I think it all is about a wash...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
– Tending the roses. Reading non-PhD-related books. Listened to more music

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
– Wasting time. Oh god... this computer is a pit.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
– Sleeping, watching movies.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
- Only with Achmed the Dead Terrorist.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
– Countdown with Keith Olbermann, or the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
– Hate is a really strong word. But I have to admit I strongly dislike some people more this year than last... and feel better for having told some of them so.

24. What was the best book you read?
– Hmmmm... The best book? Booknotes: Stories from American History by Brian Lamb. Hands-down the best romp through American history I have *ever* read - and I have read a lot of them.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
– Heh. Amazon's MP3 downloads. With their freebies and their daily 99-cent albums. Wheee!

26. What did you want and get?
– To improve my teaching.

27. What did you want and not get?
– My damn health.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
– Golden Compass.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
– Brother. I decided to get the floor furnace turned back on (again) and also call a plumber to get Crash's potty fixed... the floor furnace guy got here and immediately came right back out from under the house saying that the sewer line had ruptured... and I called the plumbers to come STAT... and thus started a $20,000 adventure which included our plumbing, central heat, air and a new mortgage. Oh. I was forty.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
– If I had had my health.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
– LOL... whatever I could find that would fit a person who has lost 10 dress sizes! I guess you would call it Thrift Store Chic.

32. What kept you sane?
– Friends, the internet, our church, school.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
– Um. Let's see. Obama? 

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
– The political issue that moved me the most was hoping that our country would have the collective will to vote for change and not put Sarah Palin anywhere near the Oval Office. (A friend of mine wrote this, and I will let it stand)

35. Who did you miss?
– My grandma.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
– OMG! I have met so many GREAT new people this year!! I haven't reached out in some 20 years... and now that I have it's amazing to me to find that there are really awesome people who are there IRL!!!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
– Oh geez. Which one? "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
- How about I quote a student exam response instead?

"Consequences are antidotes that should come before and after the antecedent."

Mildred Loving

This will be both a loving post and an angry post. And it will likely incite some very angry responses in return. I am prepared for that.

Mildred Loving died in May at the age of 68. Most of my readers are too young to remember that miscegenation was a crime even into the late 1960s in many parts of the United States, and the Lovings' case - Richard was a white man, and Mildred was a black woman - was the case which overturned all miscegenation laws in the country in 1967. Yes. Even after all the voting rights laws and all the other laws for civil rights in this country, it was still illegal for a black person and a white person to express their love for one another, particularly in most of the South. Heaven forbid they wanted to get married.

Loving v the Commonwealth of Virginia was a landmark case, argued by a very young attorney (he was 28 at the time) before the Supreme Court. The Lovings weren't even there; they simply wanted to be left alone to live in the love they had found together.

Horribly, their romance was short-lived; in 1975, they were hit by a drunk driver while driving down a country road and Richard was killed. Mildred lost an eye, and extreme poverty soon followed.

This is where I get angry. 

Where were civil rights groups? Where were charities? Where were any groups willing to come forward and quietly help this woman who had made such a difference in so many people's lives?

I know she wanted to live a peaceful, gentle, quiet life. That much is certain.

But there could have been help.

When the movie Mr. and Mrs. Loving came out in 1996 (a terrific movie, by the way - see it if you can), the proceeds of the movie went to help Mildred side her home and get needed dental work. That's all the proceeds could pay for... nothing more. Nobody else came forward to help. I suspect everybody assumed she was doing well...

But when Mildred died in May, hers was not a peaceful death. She had terrible, debilitating arthritis without good relief... and she labored greatly as she passed. Bernard Cohen, the Lovings' attorney in the Supreme Court case, saw her the day she died and did not recognize her; she had lived a hard, hard life. She resided in the same cinder-block house Richard had built - perhaps out of sentimental reasons, perhaps because she had no other choice... the fact remains she lived in abject poverty.

Where were the civil rights groups? Where were the charities? Where were any groups willing to come forward and quietly help this woman who had made such a difference in so many people's lives?

Mildred died in May. I mourn her passing. But I am angry. Angry beyond kind words right now - the sort of kind words Mildred might have wanted - because she could have had a decent life... if only decent people had cared.

The Washington Post was the source for much of the material in this post.

Atheist Blogroll

I feel a need to join yet another community of like-minded folk, and for that reason I have added the Atheist Blogroll to my sidebar. I feel you should understand why... and we should revisit the issue of atheism one more time. I discuss religion and morality frequently here... and secular humanism. But it's been a while since I have hit atheism head-on. So here it is. I am laying it open for you. Bear with me.

As many of you know, I have been an atheist for most, if not all of my life. I have chosen to follow the path of a secular humanist and have found it incredibly fulfilling, both in a moral and spiritual way. I *do* feel spirituality; I feel love and compassion and passion and caring. I feel anger and I feel sadness... all these things... and I attach them to the ways in which I deal with others.

This path is one in which I have been able to have control of my moral compass; it is not in the hands of a deity or a spiritual "other," but is entirely governed by the laws of nature and common sense. In this, I feel I have a duty to be upright and strong in my beliefs and dealings with my fellow man, and with the environment around me.

I also feel at peace that when I die I will simply become part of the earth - if I am not embalmed into some sort of crazy, impossibly insoluble thing. I haven't been able to reconcile myself with the idea of donating my body to science, though... I would rather sink into the earth and nourish the soil.

So, please, do not deal with me as an alien creature. I am simply another person. I have a strong sense of morality and beliefs just as you...

I am simply coming at it from a different perspective. That is all.

In love,
Laura

Rant on History Textbooks

Why, oh why, must textbooks... especially college history textbooks... not only cost a fortune (for god's sake, it's HISTORY)... but also WEIGH a ton???

I just got a new history textbook for review... and it weighs... ELEVEN POUNDS. Either that, or my scale is off. *I* think it weighs 11 pounds.

Weird thing about it? The main body of the text, from the beginning of time to the present, is less than 1000 pages.

What the hell??

I can tell you right now that I will stay with the condensed textbook I am currently using ($45), teach from my lectures, and supplement from my website with the things I think they *really* need. They can print/view the supplemental materials and not spend an extra $50. Yeah. A basic history text which costs $95.

 

Many (most?) older profs do not take the textbook cost into account... but I have spent a lot of time recently shopping and asking; I am not about to ask non-majors to ever again buy a hugely expensive book for something they will never use again - or will keep only for occasional reference. It just makes NO SENSE. I've had students take my class in previous semesters and GO WITHOUT THE BOOK because they couldn't afford it. With history you can sometimes get away with that (though it's hard when you are supposed to be doing chapter summaries). I just can't can't can't break any more students' budgets. It breaks my heart... and there is something that also breaks my heart when I hear that a student has dropped all his other classes but mine because mine was the only book he could afford.

My criteria? Has to have the founding docs, has to be accurate. Everything else is gravy - because *every* book is going to cover basically the same material, no matter which publisher prints it. Different points of view, yes, but same basic story. Doesn't match my point of view? GREAT! I have a wonderful teaching experience ahead!

The way other profs justify it is that they want the best reference book possible for the students to keep. I want the best textbook for the money, and I will teach them what else I feel they need to know. That's what the classroom is for, asshats. Earn your keep.

It's HISTORY for god's sake. There are only so many ways to teach it from a book (I know, I know.. there really are.. but come on!). I appreciate that they are sexing it up - and I have been part of that movement - I've been in on the late writing/editing stages of two new textbooks so far in my career. But I can't justify this kind of cost for a course for non-majors. I mean... for Pete's sake. I have the ability to choose my text... and I assure you that this one won't be it, no matter how sexy it is.

The damn textbook companies just aren't getting it.

 

And I am fed up. Right up to here.

Holiday Wish Meme

Step One

- Make a post. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple ("give a hug") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real life things, make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your blog, so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two

- Surf around your friends to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.

There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

Here are mine:

1. Do something for someone without being asked... or better yet - without them knowing about it.

2. Clean out your old VHS collection and donate the tapes to a local nursing home (swiped from my friend Lisa - I think this is awesome!)

3. Donate blood or platelets if you can.

4. Clean out your clothes closet and give to your local thrift store - or to your local city school clothes program. If you don't have clothes to donate, please find a few canned goods in your pantry for someone less fortunate. And if you can't do either, you have my kindest thoughts and best wishes. I will donate in your stead.

5. Write a letter - an honest-to-goodness paper letter - to a family member or friend telling them why you love them. Mail it. Even if you live in the same house.

6. Hold the door for someone. Anyone. Everyone.

7. Check with your public school system. See what their donation needs are and see if you can meet any of them. They will be grateful.

8. Support the arts in your schools and communities. Go to concerts, get your children involved as active listeners and participants. Take a friend - an elderly neighbor, perhaps, who would enjoy getting out - and go enjoy some music, art or dance, whether that of kids, college students or adults.

9. Promise yourself to note in your friends blogs as often as possible in the coming year; notes mean so much, if only smilies.

10. If you really, really can't find something in the above list that hits your buttons (for shame!), here is my Amazon list. I know, I know... it's like... 15 pages long. I've been wishing for a really long time. LOL. I was brought up believing if you didn't aspire you couldn't achieve!

Blue Boat Home

We sang Hyfrydol (hymn) today... so many different lyric sets to it, but my very favorite set is this, by Peter Mayer (Hymn 207 in the hymn supplement Singing the Journey by the UUA):

Though below me I feel no motion
Standing on these mountains and plains
Far away from the rolling ocean
Still my dry land heart can say
I've been sailing all my life now
Never harbor nor port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the Earth is my blue boat home

Sun, my sail and moon, my rudder
As I ply the starry sea
Leaning over the edge in wonder
Casting questions into the deep
Drifting here with my ship's companions
All we kindred pilgrim souls
Making our way by the lights of the heavens
In our beautiful blue boat home

I give thanks to the waves upholding me
Hail the great winds urging me on
Greet the infinite sea before me
Sing the sky my sailor's song
I was born upon the fathoms
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the Earth is my blue boat home
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the Earth is my blue boat home


::smile:: It's got me waltzing today... I have a smile on my face and a lilt to my words. It's just a good day to be alive. 

He's Regained My Respect

An open note to General Colin Powell (ret.)

Dear Sir:

As a general I respected your decisions even when I didn't agree with them; you were a humane man and used that humanity to make those decisions even though they sent young men and women to their deaths. You carried the burdens and sacrifices with you - and still do to this day. I respect that and admire you for that for there is no greater quality of character in a military leader.

However, when you became Secretary of State in the Bush administration I began to have my doubts. I'll grant that you initially worked brilliantly and beyond the limited grasp of the Administration and the President as a whole. You did a whole lot of good for this country. Then you went before the UN and told them of Saddam Hussein. I understand you believed the information was accurate at the time, but that faulty information led us into war. I was disappointed in you even while you tried to keep your integrity intact. You did the right thing in resigning when you did. I am now reevaluating the anger I have felt toward you in the past many years since that UN episode and its aftermath, and have realized I may have been unfair to you; my anger should have been more appropriately directed toward the Administration-at-large. For that I am sorry.

Today, though, you have redeemed yourself in my eyes with your eloquent, passionate and well-thought-out endorsement of Barack Obama. I was thrilled at the way you dissected both campaigns and delineated very carefully why you made your choice - it was impassioned, and I found my heart opening with joy for your honesty, despite your long-term relationship and friendship with John McCain. That must have been one of the most heart-wrenching decisions you have made since leaving the military, and I applaud you.

So, in sum, General Powell, kudos. If I ever have the opportunity, I will rush forward to shake your hand and be damn proud of it. You are truly a patriot and a statesman.

Laura Perry