Facebook Phenom!

I read today that Facebook has declared itself profitable. Well, bully for them! I have yet to spend a dime there, but who knows?

When it comes to Facebook, I'm both late to the party and a neophyte. And then add to that my INFP status psychologically, and no sooner had I joined than I personally had to put the brakes on my Facebook world. I literally can't keep up with it. Given the range of posts, I'm not even sure that I understand it's raison d'etre, either. Why, just tonight, I used it as a way to negotiate a substitute teacher for a colleague of mine at school who's not even one of my friends!

So who are my friends? Too many Episcopal priests! Priests from Cheyenne, WY, Newark, NJ, Cincinnati, OH, Opelika, AL & St. Louis, MO; College professors from St. Mary's College, MD, Rutgers, NJ & Bowling Green State, OH; Teaching collegues from Lexington, KY & Gathersburg, MD; a former high school classmate who lives in Tampa, FL; a political activist from Kansas; an author from New York, New York; a friend and former TV talkshow host from Mexico now living in Houston, TX; art curators living in Maryland and Texas, a college employee and friend in Tennesse, and former fuck buddy & friend in Boston, MA, etc....

These and the rest are 28 lives more than enough to keep track of and comment on and support.... So Facebook: Thumbs up or thumbs down? Jury's still out, but grateful that FB making a profit means that they will likely be around long enough for the jury to make a wise decision.

Mid-Week Funny #3

The pics are from a friend's blog, the dialogue was supplied by my over fertile imagination!

Mid-Week Funny #2

When the deck is stacked against you....

War On Terrorism September Up-Date

With the 9/11 anniversary just behind us, and renewed concern over the prosecution of the war now focused back on Afghanistan, I thought it a good time to take stock of what this year in the war on terrorism is about regarding casualties. The map shows the casualties rates for soldiers as compared to the rates for soldiers from those states in 2008. It suggests where in this country the impact of the war is likely to be felt more accutely by the people who live there. To date, 14 states and the District of Columbia have met or exceeded their casualty count from the previous year.

Most of these states have met last year's totals, but a few have exceeded: By 200% - AL, HI, & MN; by 156% - OH; by 143% - MA; by 136% - NC; and by 114% - GA. Overall, 327 soldiers have parished in the service of the War on Terrorism in the first 259 days of the year or a daily rate of 1.3 solders a day (9 soldiers a week).

70th Commemoration of the Invasion of Poland by the Nazi's and Start of World War II

I attended this event this evening at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum down on the Mall in Washington, D.C. I have been a charter member of this museum, and from time to time receive invitations to events. I rarely respond, the place is so holy and so powerfully charged with "presence" that it almost always exhausts me. Here's the information about the event that I received with the invitation:

70 YEARS LATER: REMEMBERING THE GERMAN INVASION OF POLAND

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 7 p.m.
Meyerhoff Theater
Introduction: Jacek Nowakowski, Senior Curator,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Raye Farr, Director of the Museum's Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, will introduce Siege, an Oscar-nominated short film directed by Julien Bryan, an American filmmaker, which captured Germany's ferocious siege of Warsaw and provided the American public with some of the first images of the start of World War II. Hear more about the Museum's efforts to rescue and preserve Bryan's invaluable film and photo collection.
Edwarda Powidzki was just 13 years old when she witnessed the Nazis invade her native Poland. In a conversation with Museum curator Susan Goldstein Snyder, Powidzki will share her recollections of the first days following the invasion and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

And it was the idea of hearing first hand from a death camp survivor that inspired me to attend this event.

And now I don't know what to say. It was profound. It was pedestrian. It was incomprehensible. It was all too easy to imagine. The film was a gift of courage from a very courageous man. The memories were precious jewels, snippets polished with grace from a very courageous woman. And I don't feel exhausted. I feel affirmed.

The sounds of mid-September

Include the gentle splashing of my fountain and the buzz of the random cicada. Such a lovely day.

Today's Sermon #18

Part Two: Nature

XXVII

A SPIDER sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of gnome, 5
Himself, himself inform.
Of immortality
His strategy
Was physiognomy.

~ Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

My Gardens -- The Tropics!

Welcome to the tropics, on my deck! I know, it's not exactly Amazonia, and no self respecting orangutan would let me delude myself for an instant that I was anywhere near Borneo. Yet, in a wonderful way, tending to these palms and various tropical understory plants gives me a sense of kinship with more verdant climes. The mish mash of plants contained only further establishes the fantasy with offerings tossed together that would never be joined in the wild. Plants native to Central America, Equitorial Africa and the Asian sub-continent thrive comfortably together in these two faux ancient Greek planters!

When the leaves fall and before the first frost, they'll both move to the Sunroom to survive the winter. Another experience that their feral relatives could never imagine.

What I'm Reading #21

Just polished off the first four chapters of this memoir of Matthew Shephard by his mother Judy. It's so accessible and plain-spoken. Judy not only describes the Wyoming ethos, she embodies it in her narrative. And as a teacher, I've seen "Matthew" time and again in my career. Implied in this tome is wisdom, and I look forward to growing from it.

Leaders

Is it just me, or am I of a "certain age" now so that our leaders are looking more and more like our children? Shaun Donovan, Secretary of Labor, visited a school in my county this week to speak to the students, and I swear to you, he makes me feel really OLD!

Canada Memoir #2: Viva la nudite!

When I saw this image I was reminded of an experience that I had back in the summer of 1990 with my best friend K. We'd planned a month long trip through New England and eastern Canada. Around the end of the second week we pulled into a public campsite in Quebec. It had been a very long day of driving from our previous campsite on Lake Champlain in Vermont, and after setting up our tent, we were looking for a place to freshen up before cycling into the nearest town in search of dinner.

K. asked me if I saw any place to change. Looking around, I noticed two families in an adjacent site (dads, moms, and little children) just returning from the camp's pool in swimming clothes. Before I could divert my glance, both fathers shucked off their trunks in broad daylight for all the world to see. I turned to K. and said, "I really don't think it matters where you decide to change."

When in Rome (or Quebec), eh?

What I'm Listening To #61

Allow me a few thoughts to preface this post. I am 48, and they've been amazing years. I have friends all along the spectrum of my life who have for one reason or another ceased to be curious when it comes to music. Some are even musicians, and I don't have many musical bones in my body! Yet, music permeates my life. I just can't imagine a moment without it...it's almost a manic sort of thing for me.

And so while I appreciate the music of my youth (Motown), and my high school years (Bob Seeger to Cat Stevens), I just can't stop wanting more. Ergo, you can find in my collection of CDs everything from the complete Goldberg Variations performed by Glenn Gould to all the CD's that the Indigo Girls have recorded. There are CD's by Garth Brooks, Annie Lenox, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. CD's recorded in Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Moldovian, Romanian, Finnish and Latin. Music spanning the spectrum of genres from Opera and Baroque Chamber ensembles, to Hip Hop, Reggae, and Boricua; from Country and Folk, to Jazz, Zydeco, and Alternative Rock. I've even got a couple of things that defy the genre mentality! It's all good.

Enter Pitbull's CD "Rebel- ution". This is such a quint- essential act of fusion creativity. The music is Rap-Hip Hop-Pop-Techno, packaged like a James Bond movie. The lyrics are relavent, creative, dynamic. The rythyms pound with a vital power. To fully appreciate this CD, you have to forget that some words are labeled "profanity," especially with songs like, "You're so Full of Shit" (and that's on the mild side of some of the lyrics). To focus on these things is to utterly miss out on the genius of this music.

Life is a fucking flood of ideas and experiences; and too many people spend their meager energies trying to control the current, trying to stem the flow; when the most courageous and rewarding thing you can do is rest in the presence of the torrents with your eyes and ears atune to the unlimited generative powers of the waters all around you.

Mid-Week Funny #1

I have resisted with every fiber of my being from editing this cartoon to reflect more directly an educational authority structure...The thought alone, left me laughing out loud!

What I'm Reading #20

"Playing in the Dark" is a rather dense and brilliant little monograph from Nobel Prize laureate, Toni Morrison. In it she seeks to challenge the conventional wisdom that the American literary tradition was born from an Anglo-American root that was pure and unaffected by "Africanist" influences. She does this by exploring the archetypal motifs of American literature not as unique ideas formed by a unique people, but as painfully and powerfully conceived out of an essential, psychologically entwined relationship with this nation's profound African heritage. Not an easy read, but a wonderfully satisfying one.

What I'm Watching #210

"Right By Me" is a Thai film that proves that not only does Thailand have a highly evolved, mega-technically proficient film industry; it also has evolved a cinematic culture that is vibrant enough to support independent works with more heart than expertise. It's a classic coming of age, coming out movie. The focus is on the lives of three friends. The first is Thailand's version of Jack McFarlan from "Will & Grace," the second is the well rounded "everyman," and the third is the conflicted jock from the wrong side of the tracks who has a girlfriend, but really likes boys. There are no suprises and the acting is generally on a par with a middle school production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." It's a sweet film in spite of this, and not a bad way to while away an hour and half on a raining day off!

What I'm Listening To #60

This 1994 CD by Desiree just get better and better with age. The grooves warm these old bones, and the words are inspiring and filled with hope.

and....

Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds;
Try to keep you hands up to the sky.
Lovers, they may cause you tears.
Go ahead release your fears.
Stand up and be counted,
Don't be afraid to cry....

...Love will save the day!

New Ave

Good things are happening in the neighborhood! And even more ambitious and wonderful things are awaiting in the wings.

What's For Dinner?

Why soup, of course!

I stopped at the Korean super market in upper Silver Spring on the way home yesterday. They have the best Kim Chi offering in the area, and wonderful produce with things you just won't find anywhere else (can you say Chinese Grass Asparagus?). The clientele is as much Central American as Asian with a smattering of Anglos and west Africans. The prices beat the competition hands down for fresh produce and meats and are above average for canned, dry, and frozen goods--every market has its strategy.

I've been jonesing for some cooked cabbage for a couple of days now, and between the market and my cravings, this soup was the result.

Combine in this order:

1) 2 quarts of water with 2 chicken bouillon squares set on medium heat.
2) a teaspoon of kosher sea salt
3) 5 strong cranks of the pepper grinder (black pepper corns)
4) 1 bunch of crisp, fresh scallions sliced crossways.
5) 1 cup frozen mixed yellow and white corn kernels
6) 1/2 a medium sized head of green cabbage (chopped into 1 inch squares approximately)
7) 1/2 a green bell pepper, diced
8) a fistfull of garden fresh green beans tipped and cut into generous lengths (1-1 1/2 inches)
9) 2 cans of diced fire roasted tomatoes
10) a generous table spoon of olive oil

Cook avoiding a rolling boil until the green beans are tender. Serve with an artisan bread and hearty appetite.

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

As a child, my sister and I spent countless summer days innocently engaged in the "sport" of butterfly collecting. Dancing and chasing the delicate insects through fields of daisies, black-eyed susans, and queen anne's lace with our nets crafted by our mother, we weren't thinking about the fact that a successful hunt would mean the demise of our prey. We just loved catching butterflies.

And today, I miss the Monarchs. I know they're not exactly extinct yet. But I also know that they are well on their way to that ignoble inevitablity that conforms to the law of entropy and someday even awaits humankind. Have you ever thought about life that way? We humans are famously self-absorbed and unself-aware at the same time! Yet, the day will come when our species will know what the Dodo bird, the Passenger Pigeon, and the Carolina Perakeet knew before us.

But I digress; today, the story was the Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. Such beautiful, grand butterflies, and they frequent my gardens throughout the summer. Their current obsession is with the monumental, poly-headed thistle that voluntarily grew in my circle garden to a height just shy of 8 feet! It's nothing to see three of them exploring the blossoms at a time. There were two, when I snapped this picture along with a bumble bee, a clouded sulpher butterfly and a fiery skipper. This single plant is a lepidopterist's fantasy come true!

What I'm Listening To #59

Lester Young was nothing short of a genius. A veritable everyman who lived by the beat of his own drum. He coined the most ubiquitous slang phrase in the entire English language, "Cool." I'm not joking here, he's the father of COOL! Swell, groovy, bad, phat...let's face it, they're all "cool" wannabes, and come and go as they do, cool remains on the throne of it's own utter coolness.

It's kind of like Lester Young's music. In the vain of John Coltrane, Young enbraces a melodie with his saxophone like the serpent around the sensual body of Eve in the Garden of Eden. You feel that you are not so much listening to music as witnessing love making. And it's so cool, you don't even have a reason to feel ashamed.

Defense of Marriage? Fabulous!

The facts are in...those pesky little liberal and progressive facts that drive the self-serving, self-aggrandizing, conservative dunderheads to fits of screaming rage! One of my personally favorite things they do! Makes me laugh everytime.

Random Quote #108

"He drew a circle to keep me out,
A thing of scorn, and a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.”
~ Edwin Markham, 1852 - 1940

Late August Gardens #1

The container plantings off my kitchen door continue to delight in every way!

What I'm Listening To #58

As usual, late to the table, but still loving Flo Rida's "R.O.O.T.S." CD. From start to finish this collection flows with rythym and bounce that gives your heart a sense of syncronicity. Flo Rida's creative nexus typifies the urban groove/Rap ethos of self-revelatory narrative. It's a telling of stories that reveals a world that anyone with half-a-heart can embrace. Flo Rida extends this genre by doing it with a quality of delivery that distinguishes him from the hordes of wannabe's. If you like sex, relationships, family, partying, precision lyrics and kickass music, this is the CD for you! Not to put too fine a point on it.

The Massachusett's Kennedy Conundrum

With the passing into ancestry of Senator Edward Kennedy, a critical void has been created in the United States Senate. Republicans are playing pure politics when they suggest that this is NO time to talk about his replacement--because what they don't say is that NO time is appropriate in their playbook. I will step out of the pack of reverent apoliticism and say this; the BEST way to honor one of this nation's consummate politicians is to speak about the political future of his very and deeply vested seat. I do so here with reverence and without apology.

The IDEAL: Massachusetts deserves a full compliment of senators, which reflect the state's progressive majority ethos at a time when every senator matters to the nation as a whole.

The REAL: Because the majority of the citizens elected progressive Democrats to make their laws, those elected officials created a scheme to protect their interests from the possibility of being represented by a conservative appointee sent to the senate by a former Republican governor.

How to proceed? What's the bottom line? Here's my perspective: The people of Massachusetts elect legislators whom they feel will protect and promote their interests. The law to deny former Republican Governor Mitt Romney the ability to appoint a conservative politician to the Senate did that. And now their imminent reversal of that law simply does the same thing: it represents the will of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You can dislike it, you can pooh-pooh it, but it ultimately boils down to something South Carolina's Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, most recently reiterated during the confirmation hearings of Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court: "Elections have consequences. Period."

So I predict that Massachusetts governor Duval Patrick is about to have the opportunity to appoint Senator Kennedy's replacement, and this is my suggestion. Appoint someone who will on-face commit to only fulfill the five months between their appointment and the special election. Appoint someone who will exemplify the legacy of Senator Kennedy's life of service. Appoint someone who represents Senator Kennedy's commitment to diversity and justice.

Therefore, APPOINT the retired Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, the Right Reverend Barbara Harris. A black woman of impeccable progressive credentials, whose life's mission has been to serve all of the people of Massachusetts without prejudice in the pursuit of a more perfect union, with liberty and justice for all.

Our Latest American Hero #136

Army Pvt. Keiffer P. Wilhelm, 19, of Plymouth, Ohio, died August 4 in Maysan province, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 13th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas. The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

The body of an Army private who died Tuesday in south- western Iraq arrived late Thursday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The non-combat shooting death of Plymouth native Kieffer P. Wilhelm is under investigation, Army officials said. The 19-year-old infantryman landed in Iraq about a month ago.

“We’re all beside ourselves,” Shelly Wilhelm, his stepmother, said Thursday. “I loved the boy.”

After enlisting in December, Wilhelm went to Fort Bliss, Texas, via Fort Benning, Ga., and served in the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division. His division left for southwest Asia in May 2009 to prepare for operations in Iraq, the Army reports. 

Department of Defense officials said his death from a gunshot wound was in a “non-combat incident,” but a Pentagon spokeswoman gave no other details Thursday.

Shelly Wilhelm, 39, of Plymouth, said Kieffer Wilhelm had lived with them for about a year. He graduated from Willard High School in May 2008. She said his father, Adrian “Shane” Wilhelm, 40, last spoke to his son via text message in late July. They last saw him May 7 at his brother’s wedding in Arizona, where Kieffer was best man. 

The Wilhelms are a military family. Shane is a Navy veteran of Operation Desert Storm. Kieffer’s older brother, Shannon, 21, serves in the Air Force.

Shelly said the family got the news Tuesday afternoon,. Shane Wilhelm left for Dover on Wednesday, she said. He is expected to return to Plymouth in a few days with his son’s body. A memorial service will be announced.

FOLLOW-UP article:

Four American soldiers have been charged with cruelty and maltreatment of an 19-year-old soldier who committed suicide after being in Iraq for 10 days, the U.S. military told NBC News Friday.

The four Multi-National Division-South soldiers are accused of hazing Private Keiffer P. Wilhelm of Ohio. They abused Wilhelm with excessive physical fitness, said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a military spokesman.

One defense official told NBC News that Wilhelm eventually stopped going to public areas to avoid being harassed repeatedly for being overweight.

Olson said the period of time over which the alleged acts took place was under investigation.

The Fort Bliss soldier locked himself inside a portable toilet and shot himself with a rifle on Aug. 4 in Maysan Province, military officials told NBC. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

Military officials identified the charged officers as Sgt. Enoch Chatman, Staff Sgt. Bob Clements, Sgt. Jarrett Taylor and Spc. Daniel Weber, all of B Troop, 2nd Squadron, 13th Cavalry Regiment from Fort Bliss, Texas.

The four soldiers also are accused of abusing other male soldiers, Olson said.

The accused are part of the first brigade to deploy to Iraq for the new Advise and Assist mission, whose job is to train Iraqi security forces to be better soldiers.

Chatman, of West Covina, Calif., was charged with four counts of cruelty and maltreatment, one count of making a false statement and one count of reckless endangerment. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 10 years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of pay, the military said.

Clements, of Eastland, Texas, faces four counts of cruelty and maltreatment, three counts of making a false statement, one count of impeding an investigation and one count of reckless endangerment. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 25 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge, the military said.

Taylor, of Edmond, Okla., was charged with two counts of cruelty and maltreatment, one count of making false statement and one count of reckless endangerment. He faces up to eight years in prison, if convicted on all charges.

Weber, of Frankenmuth, Mich., has been charged with three counts of cruelty and maltreatment, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of impeding an investigation. The charges together carry a nine-year maximum sentence upon conviction.

Random Quote #107

"A loud voice is not always angry; a soft voice not always to be dismissed; and a well-placed silence can be the indisputable last word."

~ Gloria Naylor, 1950 -

New Pocket Magnet Version

God, I love Scrabble, but I never imagined that I would face the possibility of asking, "Is that the new pocket magnetic version of Scrabble? Or are you just glad to see me!?"

Calendar Time?

Looking for a 2010 Calendar? Skip Barnes & Noble and Borders, and support the South Florida Firefighter's Charities. The link will give you all the information you need.

http://www.firefighterscalendar.com/

My Quilting Ways #18

My latest quilt continues to evolve. I've worked out the arrangement of the twelve fabrics. This model doesn't actually reflect the much more subtle patterns or effects of the actual fabrics' interactions with one another. It just give me a guide to follow as I plot it out. From the first triad (My Quilting Ways #17) I have now completed 4 of the 12. I'm liking this one a lot.

Thangka Friends

Got a postcard from a friend with this beautiful image of the Medicine Buddha Thangka from Tibet.

Town Hall Meeting 101

Recently Representative Barney Frank was attacked at a Townhall meeting in Massachusetts by a bat ass stupid little tool of the ReTHUGlican party, and he cut the crap with her like any self-respecting sentient being would without fear, without hesitation, and with a grace that strikes like lightning--a bold bolt of truth-telling.

I sent him the following response in the form of a post card. 28¢ to support him and be an activist! Who among us can't afford that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Representative Frank,

I know you are a busy and important person. So, I won’t beat around the bush: I thought your response to that young lady who spoke of Obama and Nazism in the same breath at your recent townhall meeting was BRILLIANT! I’ve never been prouder to call myself a Democrat, a Progressive, a Gay Man, or an American! YOU ROCK, sir.
YOU, fucking ROCK! THANK YOU!--I can shout, too....
Blessings!

My Quilting Ways #17

No sooner do I finish one quilt, than I start the next. This is the first of 12 patches featuring a triad of intertwined spikes against a charcoal background. The finished quilt with feature 12 different fabrics used in equal measure with one being donimant in each of the triads...perhaps the 12 tribes of Isreal? It's still evolving.

My Quilting Ways #16

I shared a couple of the circle patches from this quilt earlier; here, the finished product.

It's a work about diversity: Circles in vibrant colors appliqued against a criss-cross background of white on point squares under a grid of an off-white fabric with a pure white pattern. Subtle versus brilliant. Rigid versus organic. Bland versus vibrant. Conflict drives everything toward resolution, the difference gives everything energy, the journey deeper discovery.

And it's just kind of pretty, too.

TV Stamps

Have you seen the latest US postal commemoratives?

"TV Early Memories" with 20 images from early TV personalities like Rod Serling, Milton Berle & Lassie. 4 favs here: Red Skelton, Dinah Shore, Fran Ållison (Kukla & Ollie), and Raymond Burr. You look at these images and wonder how anyone survived nacent TV and remained straight! The memories are pleasant, even as the post office and stamps may soon become memories in their own right. Modernity is a heartless mistress. And we live in times where story boards for shows of my youth like "Twilight Zone" seem less scary and more inevitable. Great stamps!

What I'm Reading #19

Reading is not really true, here, and yet it is.

Like everything David Sedaris has ever written, it's best when he reads it to you! "When You Are Engulfed In Flames" is no exception. He's such a gifted story teller. Skip the hard cover, go for the 8 disk audio version.

What ultimately makes David Saderis so delightful is his non chalant, intimate accessibility. You can only fully appreciate that when if comes from his own voice, and once there, you'll never read anything that he's written without hearing the cadence and tembor of his voice in your mind. Why waste the brain power? Just buy the DVD's, you won't be disappointed!

What I'm Watching #210

"Denied is a Canadian film from 2004 about the angst between a becoming self-accepting gay former high school football star and his sexually ambiguous artsy slacker roommate. And the movie is all about the angst. I could have sworn that I knew both of the principle actors, Lee Rumohr (Troy) and Matt Austin (Merrick), but a quick visit to IMDB proved me wrong; though both had short/reaccurring roles on the US version of Queer as Folk, a TV series I've never seen. I think at least for Lee Rumohr the false recollection has everything to do with his uncanny resemblance to French actor, Stéphane Rideau.

In a way this movie reminded me of my own college years when I still wasn't ready to own my sexuality and so kept falling into intimate mostly unrequited liaisons with straight boys (it's surprising how far two young men will go with each other when they are both "straight")....interesting film, not at all what I expected.

Whole Foods Market, Inc. -- My Response!

Whole Food Markets, Inc.'s CEO, John Mackey has come out in a pronounced and passionate way against national Healthcare Reform. As a consumer of his business, I cannot accept this blindly. He has every right to take a stand, and I have not only a right, but an obligation to respond. Here's my response, in the form of a letter.

John Mackey, CEO
Whole Foods Market, Inc.
550 Bowie Street
Austin, Texas 78703-4644

Dear Mr. Mackey,

I'm going to keep this short and to the point. Your stance against healthcare reform is surely ill informed and simply unacceptable. As a corporate business owner, you of all people ought to realize the value of a national healthcare system that provides affordable, efficient access to doctors and medicine for all Americans.
We live in the richest nation this planet has ever witnessed, and yet our citizens receive only the 37th best healthcare behind places like Costa Rica, Andorra, & Cyprus! This is simply unacceptable. We have given our new president a mandate to make right in this area what has been for way too long wrong. Your right to oppose this initiative is your sacred option; however, as the corporate leader of a company that I have long supported with my hard earned dollars, it comes at a price.
After years of frequent and regular patronage at your stores in Silver Spring and Gaithersburg, Maryland; I will no longer spend another dime at either. Furthermore, I will do whatever I can to educate my family, friends, co-workers, and church community about your opposition to healthcare reform in the hopes of convincing them to take the same stand.
I sincerely hope that you come to your senses and recant your opposition to healthcare reform.

Civily yours,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A similar letter was sent to each of the members of Whole Foods Market's board of Directors. They are:

Dr. John B. Elstrott
Gabrielle Greene
Hass Hassan
Stephanie Kugelman
Jonathan A. Seiffer
Morris Siegel
Jonathan D. Sokoloff
Dr. Ralph Z. Sorenson
and
William A. Tindell, III

Here's a copy of the letter that I sent to each of the them:

William A. Tindell, Member of the Board of Directors
Whole Foods Market, Inc.
550 Bowie Street
Austin, Texas 78703-4644

Dear Mr. Tindell,

I'm going to keep this short and to the point. The stance of your CEO, John Mackey, against healthcare reform is simply unacceptable. As a member of the Board of Directors at Whole Foods, you deserve to be informed when your CEO’s actions jeopardize the bottom line of the company you are charged with shepherding.
As I told, Mr. Mackey in a separate letter, we live in the richest nation this planet has ever witnessed, and yet our citizens receive only the 37th best healthcare behind places like Costa Rica, Andorra, & Cyprus!1 This is simply unacceptable. We have given our new president a mandate to make right in this area what has been for way too long wrong. And while I will defend Mr. Mackey’s right as an American citizen to speak his truth, as the corporate leader of your company --a company that I have long supported with my hard earned dollars, his right to an opinion comes at a price.
After years of frequent and regular patronage at your stores in Silver Spring and Gaithersburg, Maryland; I will no longer spend another dime at either. Furthermore, I will do whatever I can to educate my family, friends, co-workers, and church community about Mr. Mackey’s opposition to healthcare reform.
I sincerely hope that you can help Whole Foods discover a more humane stand on this issue.

Civily yours,

What I'm Watching #209

Just saw this film about the staging as a musical of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" at a backwater boys school, where the kid playing Puck is gay and gets his revenge on all the bullies with the help of a little fairy magic. "Were the World Mine" is a veritable train wreck of ideas. With some really wonderful moments, but an overall lack of an adult in charge...kinda like AMND, come to think of it.

Past Time for Truth Telling!

You Go Bill! You Go!

Crafts "MAN" ship?

Take a seat, er, gentle- men....

What I'm Watching #208

"Good Boys" is another film out of Israel. It tells the story of a night in the lives of two male prostitutes in Tel Aviv. It's a no frills look at life on the streets.

Interesting, well directed and written with simple and believable dialogue. I'm glad I watched it. I'm ambivilent about recommending it.

Deer Out! Indeed!

I may have found it--El Dorado, the lost city of gold!

Well, okay...no gold. But something just as precious to this frustrated gardener: a naturally formulated spray that repels dear from using my gardens like a smorgasbord. It's called "Deer Out" and can be purchased via the Internet. After a month where all of my hostas, phlox, violets, begonias and roses have been decimated, I asked my neighbor how his garden had managed to fair so well. And he introduced me to this product.

It has a menthol, pepper-minty smell and is absorbed into the leaves where it claims to protect the plant from consumption for up to 3 months. Here’s hoping!

What I'm Watching #207

The poster for the movie reads like some military recruitment campaign with the question: "Do You Have What It Takes?" And believe me, it's no coincidence as we witness Julie Powell's attack on the recipes in the seminal cookbook "The Art of French Cooking" by her idol, Julia Child (Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle), paralleled against Child & Company's own heroic offensive in creating and getting the original work published. As ad campaigns go, this one seeks to counter-act the movie's real strength and I suppose broaden the innocent appeal of the movie -- a movie that is not about drama, but in the best sense and execution of the genre: relationships.

A mon avis, this is the best film Nora Ephron has ever made. Meryl Streep is stunningly endearing as the irrepressible diva of all things "au sujet de la cuisson." The performances of her co-conspirators in the project: Linda Emond & Helen Carey (both familiar to those of us hooked on the "Law & Order" franchise for their varied and reoccurring roles) are delightful. Stanley Tucci delivers such a restrained and beautiful performance as Julia's beloved husband, Paul. Tucci is the epitome of an actor, because he knows exactly what not to do in a scene to make you forget that you're watching a reenactment of anything. The scenes of affection and romance between he and Meryl brought tears to my eyes every time. The costumes and settings were just as much characters in conveying me to the 50's and Julia Child's amazing world.

The story of the here and now was Amy Adams alone, and she carried it with an at times innocent aggression that gave what could have been a sidekick in this film the presence of an equal. This is one I look forward to adding to my DVD collection.

Bon Appetit!

Mi Maduro Burro

I've named my new truck! And it's just come in with it's first gas milage stats: 28.97 miles per gallon. 29 mpg is good enough for me! Someone should tell the government, and it would have cost me $4,500 less than it did.

Exponential Times

I posted an older version of this video over a year ago. It's very thought provoking and so here's an updated version, again.

Shocking - Information Age

What I'm Reading #18

The memoir of recently passed-into-ancestry writer E. Lynn Harris is making for some very compelling summer reading. He starts his tale with his 1990 suicide attempt, and then takes you back to the events in his life that led him to that point, and then the journey to wholeness and fulfillment. It makes his untimely death two weeks ago all the more poignant. At times his story is tremendously painful to read, but you're never that far away from grace, from goodness.

He says of memoir himself, "The lessons I have learned are not limited to race, gender, or sexual orientation. Anyone can learn from my journey. Anyone can overcome a broken heart."

I would love if every teacher at my school would read this story to increase their empathy quota.

Apple as Art, as Lore

Love this clever little image. Reminds me of Michael Pollan's book, "The Botony of Desire" and all of the history and facts about apples included therein. Tidbits like the origin of apples being the central steppes of Asia. The nation of Kazakhstan to be specific, who's capital Alma Ata literally translates as "The Father of the Apple". Long way from there is its transformation into America's most patriotic fruit!

The apple is very much like us in that the seeds of every apple contain a unique genetic code. The offspring can be as much like or as imaginably different from the parent as our children. This is called, "heterozygotism," and apples exhibit this characteristic in the extreme. In an apple core this means that the ONLY way to get a replica of an existing variety is to graft it. Err, that would be the old-fashioned version of cloning.

So this particular apple carved into the world came from a progenator that appeared in the field of an Iowa farmer in the 1870's. It wasn't something he anticipated and so in plowing his fields, he wacked it back. But as anyone who owns an apple tree can testify, they are as tenacious as any weed. So for a couple of years, Jesse Hiatt, wacked back this obnoxious plant, but eventually he let the tree grow and thereby discovered the amazing fruit it produced. In 1880, he entered it in a competition which it won, and then sold the rights to a commercial interest who named it Red Delicious and began it's journey into the pantheon of all American apple history. Every single Red delicious apple ever eaten, admired, turned into cider, whatever, since then is a clone of a clone of a clone of that scrappy little volunteer apple tree on that rural Iowa farm. And now someone carves one into a map of the world--how fitting.

Merce Cunningham RIP

Another artist has died. Merce Cunning- ham was one of the most influent- ial and innova- tive choreographers of the twentieth century. He created more than 200 choreographic works in his lifetime. He was to dance, what a host of abstract expressionist artists were to painting and/or sculpture, but he did it on his own. A lover of the human body, he demanded his dancers to embrace movement and physicality for it's own value--unhindered by music, lighting or other theatrical trappings. His passing into ancestry on Sunday, July 25th, has forever marked an end to era in dance. In accordance with his will, his dance company will disband by July of 2011, but his influence will forever extend into the future.

Merce was a member of the cast of many who's ideas and influence pushed the rest of us into modernity. Too many people live life as serfs tending the soil of their meager lives never imagining for a moment the power of the present, let alone the possibility of the future. Merce's life expressed a profound desire to live as if the possible were the present, and the present was always reaching out for more...what a compelling witness to our potential.

Cash For Clunkers Fever

I visited a local Nissan dealer today after exploring possibili- ties online last evening. It was a hot day, sun and humidity past my comfort zone. I stood a good while on the lot until a grey haired, copper skinned gentlemen approached me and began the transaction process as my salesperson--how random life is for those who work on commission.

I quickly discovered, he was this wonderfully congenial Jamacian-American. We bonded around the teaching thing: in a former life, he taught at an elite high school in Kingston. At 62, he still remembered with genuine nostolgic affection his role as track coach there, and his students whom he'd guided to inter-American first place trophies back in the mid-70's. After emigrating to the United States, he coached at Arch-Bishop Carroll high school in Washington, D.C. for a time and took a few of the kids there to international meets, too, where they prevailed. I love stories. Older men and women possess amazing ones. I went there to explore the possibility of buying a truck, and I walked away owning the gift of another man's world.

On the particulars, I can get $7,500 off the sticker price. The truck I'm looking at is a Nissan Frontier; appears to be available and the monthly payment is cake for me. I'm planning to return tomorrow to close the deal. Having not purchased a new vehicle since 1992!--my current truck, a.k.a. "clunker," doesn't even show up on the Nissan website for trade in quotes (which only goes back to 1995)! And it's engine is still purring like a kitty!

What I'm Listening To #57

Pulled out this amazing album and have been listening to it over the better part of the last couple of evenings. There's a reason why it was the all time best selling album prior to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Produced in 1971, I didn't discover it until 1985. As a result, all of the ground breaking songs embraced by the feminist movement on "Tapestry" largely remained obscure from that vantage point, and the album was free to take on an intensely personally role in the soundtrack of my mid-20's. It’s the backdrop to unrequited love, existential angst, incredible friendships, and some of the most profound moments of personal revelation in my life.

Listening again is like opening up a locked box of intimate memories, blunted feelings, and nearly forgotten moments. The risk of melancholy is still ameliorated by Carole King's forceful message of empowerment that is the foundation of this amazing album.