Freshly Pressed pointed me towards this fabulous list of Romantic Movies for Geeks. I’ve seen them all except the Michael Cera ones. No, wait. I did see Juno. The other two have been floating in the tank of yearning but are nowhere near the top. What’s at the top? A little thing called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
Yesterday afternoon, news broke that songstress supreme Whitney Houston had been found dead in her Beverly Hills hotel room. All day today, I’ve been flooded with memories of listening to her music, dancing to it, pretending I could sing it, but really, no one sings like her.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYzlVDlE72w&w=420&h=315]
This Sunday is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. This Wednesday was the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese woman sold into slavery, brought to Italy and eventually freed by the Italian courts when she refused to leave the convent where her owners had left her during their trip overseas. Unfortunately, slavery still exists but organizations like CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking) and CIW (Coalition of Immokalee Workers) are winning the battle, person by person and company by company. Today Trader Joe’s joined the Fair Food Program, which improves the working conditions and protects the human rights of workers who put food on our tables by picking it from the fields. One small step for a popular grocery store, one big step towards a more just world.
One small change in a proposed HHS mandate was also a big victory for religious liberty. The First Amendment enshrines a founding principle of our country: that government cannot tell us what to believe or how to live according to those beliefs. I’m not sure whether it was the 200,000 letters and signatures, or all the mainstream editorials that ran heavily against the mandate, but today the mandate was adjusted in favor of religiously affiliated organizations.
And on a more personal level, freedom reigns in my home again. Earlier this week, my husband fired his boss. Walking away from an abusive relationship is hard and leaving a paycheck behind is scary, but he has courageously done both these things because he knows his rights and values his dignity. Ultimately, that’s what the Fair Food Program and religious liberty are also all about.
It’s been quite a week, so raise your glass and celebrate. Ring some bells while you’re at it!
There is no such thing as over-sharing. And I’m not gonna lie either; it’s not just an itch but a fierce tickling sensation mixed with slight burning.
There’s some debate in my house about what it means to be a morning person. I contend that rising easily at an early hour – like seven a.m. – qualifies one for the club. To me, it’s about whether you like getting up and function well before the necessities of the day take over.
My husband, on the other hand, believes morning people watch the sunrise with their coffee already made and most of the daily news consumed. He likes to rise around 5:30 and considers me a sloth.
There’s definitely a different quality to the hour before dawn than the one that follows. The stillness envelopes you with peace, the darkness reminds you of the night that just passed, the solitude embraces you like a dear friend that doesn’t need to say a word.
In the twenty-first century, ordering our day by the sun seems almost as archaic as arranging our urban school year to accommodate the needs of farmers. Yet our circadian rhythms seem to be hardwired; many people who work nights have to counteract their reverse schedules with sun lamps and white noise. They have trick their bodies into thinking everything is fine when they rise in the afternoon or early evening and head to work while most of us are heading to bed. Their shift ends as the sun rises and they sleep in broad daylight. And then there are the times we party until the sun comes up. Exuberant and often drunk, we celebrate the sunrise with an entirely different perspective than the runner or the morning shift worker who anticipate the new day.
Sunrise may be one of the most photographed, reported, analyzed daily phenomenons. Poets have filled pages of pronouncements upon the new day, photographers have filmed countless daybreaks and in our electronic age every sunrise gets a daily timestamp from meteorologists. We expect it, need it, even if we sleep through it. Even our endless postindustrial twenty-four hour day has to start somewhere, so why not the quiet moments of darkness giving way to light?
Centuries ago, travelers relied on the generosity of monasteries and convents for shelter and food. Monks and nuns took care of the poor as well as the rich, using donations from the latter to help the former. Recently, a group of women religious bought stock in hotels, not to return to their ancient roots of caring for strangers but in order to tackle a modern twist on the age-old problem of prostitution – sex trafficking. By holding hotels accountable for human trafficking awareness training, the good sisters aim to decrease the rate of sex trafficking in Indianapolis this weekend. That’s a lot more complex than teaching catechism or changing bedsheets. I will admit that the whole phenomenon of exploiting women during glorious sporting events baffles me, but perhaps I haven’t watched enough Spartacus.
And isn’t the Super Bowl just another gladiator match with slightly different rules and better stadiums? Since the twenty-first century enjoys perks like sanitation, air travel and the internet, there is also a multimedia extravaganza available online and in person. There’s much talk about how this game is a rematch of the 2007 game and a face-off between two great quarterbacks – one boisterously good-looking and famous, the other an often-overlooked little brother. I hope it’s a nail biter like the AFL & NFL Championship games; the whole playoff series was stupendous football so it would be a drag to have the game be a blowout, even if the commercials feature the return of Ferris Bueller.
The dramatic twists and turns of this season require a great climax, maybe the kind of drama delivered by Mark Moseley back in 1982. But what happens after the glamour goes away? Does playing sports have value for grown men? Mike Wise of the Washington Post found out in this weekend’s feature, which might have been called Tilting at Windmills in Fredericksburg, or The Federicksburgh Generals, Football, and Finding Peace. But it’s in the Post, where clever headlines and article titles violate editorial standards.
Post headlines aren’t teasers, they’re trailers that give away the entire story. And yet it works, because I definitely wanted to read this:
Indiana election chief found guilty of voter fraud, other charges; faces removal from office
The article explains that Charlie White, the secretary of state for Indiana and therefore the person in charge of enforcing voting law, was found guilty of false registration, voting in another precinct, perjury and theft. Theft, you say? Did he steal ballots? No. He lied about where he was living because he didn’t want to give up his $1,000 a month salary for serving on a town council after he moved. Yeah. He took taxpayer money fraudulently while campaigning for a job that requires the utmost in honor and integrity in order to protect our right to vote. Now that’s irony.
This morning as I slid between sleep and wakefulness, I heard a washing machine filling with water in the apartment upstairs. The sound of the pipes clicking on and off wasn’t particularly loud or obnoxious, just enough noise to let me know that someone was getting ready for the day. Maybe they were planning a long weekend away, or expecting company to stay overnight. Before the sun came up, my own husband started a load of work clothes. Usually we manage to keep laundry under control but not this week. This week the baskets are overflowing. And my husband will be working all weekend so something must be done. Now.
The same thing happens with filing. I’m in the fourth week of a lifestyle improvement project called ‘The Game On Diet” and I’ve had to do twenty minutes of filing every day since we started. The piles of paperwork weren’t quite as high as the mountains of laundry, but they were still daunting. At first, I invented my own system of piles mentally labeled ‘to do,’ to file later,’ ‘to shred’ but then I found an article in the Washington Post that advocated an actual file box. And that box has been a brilliant aid to my endeavors. It’s reassuring to hear from a professional organizer that we can manage our paperwork in small bursts of regular action. I’m figuring out what to keep and what to toss with the help of a list from the Consumer Union website. Apparently they do more than evaluate washing machines…
What filing and laundry have in common is that they simply must be done. Disaster ensues otherwise. Why live without clean underwear? Not that paramedics or doctors really care, but it’s much harder to decide what to wear when your choices are three piles: barely worn, worn a few times, and wore to the gym twice. Finding the motivation to take care of filing and laundry can be hard and for most people it’s a cycle; you do it well for a few weeks, then you skip a week to remind yourself how unpleasant that can be. You can pay people to do your filing or your laundry, or if you’re lucky both, but in the end only you know where your husband’s birth certificate and his socks really belong.
Large portions of the workforce are kicking back with a brew now as I actually head out to photograph not one but two work events. I’m jealous, but only a little. Have a great weekend…
This morning on the way to work I took a bike path as a shortcut and saw this sign instructing us all on how to yield properly. I’m not sure how the horses are expected to read it but apparently they are not expected to yield so they will do the right thing naturally. Basically, the theme here seems to be don’t run each other down or block someone’s way.
And that’s not a far stretch from ‘do unto others as you would have done unto you.’ But as you can see, the sign is dirty and battered and resembles what’s happened to the Golden Rule in a lot of ways.
We’re usually pretty good at not running into each other, partly because it’s obvious and it hurts. Just be respectful, choose safety, and avoid bloodshed.
It’s blocking each other that gets us in trouble and leads to the need for signs. Blocking in football requires deliberate full body contact, but in daily life it is subtle and insidious. We don’t always notice how our choices impact others, how our hurries and worries cause us to get in the way of someone else. Rush hour intersections are a great example; they are filled with cars hoping to make the light and instead blocking the flow of traffic. It’s not that people are trying to get in the way, it’s that they’re not trying not to. Drivers try to beat the lights instead of yielding, submitting, surrendering to forces beyond their control.
We’ve all been there – thinking of everything on our to do list, the busy day we just had, thinking of everything except where we are and what we’re doing. We go through life automatically, without connecting with our world, somehow thinking that we’re in control simply because we haven’t had a collision. Meanwhile we’re surrounded by miles of blocked traffic that we ourselves have caused.
And so we have signs reminding us to yield to beautiful creatures, great and small, whenever they come upon us.
And look out for horse droppings…
Yep. Virginia cow farmers are making a concerted effort to send some of their finest bulls to Russia. Apparently decades of communism and turmoil have depleted the breeding stock. And Russian cow farmers prefer actual animals to the shipments of semen or embryos that seem to suffice elsewhere… because there aren’t a lot of artificial insemination livestock experts hanging around? Either that, or they just love these beautiful Holsteins so much they have to have them the way a car lover just has to have a Ferrari.
I suspect it’s a case of total Holstein love more than the article’s claim that Russians are ‘lacking expertise in assisted bovine reproductive technology.’ Couldn’t they acquire that expertise faster than the ten years it took to negotiate this deal? Right now, the Russians are the only country with regular space flights. Ok, occasionally a satellite launch goes awry and skywatchers pontificate about space debris while comedians crack jokes about Russian probes, but the farmers of Russia could surely inseminate a cow if they wanted to.
Russia may be poor, corrupt and completely hostage to unfortunate social patterns, but it is actually a decently educated country. Adult literacy is nearly 100%. Check out these UNESCO statistics. When compared to the United States, there’s a spending and quality issue at the university level but you can’t say Russians aren’t smart enough to inseminate cows, complicated though it may be.
They just want our Holsteins.
And they want them bad, bad enough to negotiate for ten years just to acquire sixty bulls.
Why?
For one thing, they are beautiful animals.
And for another, they are profitable and productive for farmers. Holstein Association USA includes the phrase ‘for maximum profit’ in its logo. The government reports that Holsteins are “well known around the world for her ability to produce large volumes of milk, butterfat and protein. She is a very profitable cow for farmers when large amounts of feed with high levels of grain are available.” Apparently Holsteins can produce nearly three times as much milk a year compared to Russian cows, which were bred for both meat and dairy production and not great at either.
Don’t worry. American ranchers are exporting Angus and Hereford bulls at an even faster pace so Russia will soon have plenty of steak. And milk. 
Russians are so desperate to improve their herds they will do anything to improve productivity from their animals, including giving them televisions and bras because a mere pasture isn’t enough.
But back to Virginian dairy farmers. They’re cleverly taking advantage of the low dollar and the high demand for their product and it’s a great business concept, for now. In a few years, the Russian dairy herd will recover. What’s the next step for Virginia dairies? Perhaps the Virginia Dairy Princess knows…
Space nuts and science nerds are abuzz with the news that the Milky Way is most likely white, and not just any white but the color of fresh spring snow in the early morning. That’s not at all the same as the snow outside
my door this morning. While much of the rest of the country is digging out, my area had a dusting followed by a freezeover. The result is a crusty, icy white slide zone. Surrounded by hills, ice is my enemy, even interspersed with flecks of grass and other reminders that it was 60 degrees out just days ago. I nearly slid down a hill on my walk home from church today.
And that made me think about all the cliches around the word and color white. Does it symbolize the fullness of true purity or complete spectral emptiness? Are we aware of the many variations and shades and values of white, or do our brains just register the color and move on? Does white help us see better, or blind us to other shades and values?
Famed architect Richard Meier loves white so much he uses a trademark brilliant ‘Meier’ white in many of his buildings, often to great success and acclaim. “There is plenty of color, and the white allows us to appreciate that color. It intensifies our perception of color, and the way that color changes throughout the day the way nature changes,” he told writer Mark Sommer.
Yet the homeowners of Brentwood, California felt strongly that his design of the Getty Center should not include that blinding shade and got a conditional use permit to prevent it. Ultimately, Meier used travertine and an off-white aluminum for most of the project, though a tour guide showed me where he slipped in his favorite bright white on a small pergola hidden from the sight of neighbors.
Apparently Meier is stubborn, and so are various perceptions about the color white. It is not all one sameness. Just look at this picture of what used to be my lawn…
As beautiful as a winter wonderland can be, it turns to slush soon enough. Stark white walls get scraped, clothing gets stained, napkins get blotted. It seems impossible to remain all white, pure and empty indefinitely. Yet perhaps white reflects back to us what we most want to see.