Wednesday Works in Progress

I've been knitting, I promise. The thing I can't seem to wrap my brain around is the digital camera. We used to have a nice simple one, but it got dropped off too many bicycle handlebars. Oddly enough, one day it just didn't wake up from that kind of abuse, and it got replaced with a fancy-dancy one that I can only work when Dave is standing over my shoulder. Which he isn't at the moment, so you have to wait for pictures.

The general idea is this:


It's the Something Red Cardigan from Knit and Tonic. If you like the pattern, it's not wildly different from Mr. Greenjeans from the new Knitty. The story about why I'm knitting this pattern is a little funny.

I'm on this knitalong on Ravelry where we read a Jane Austen novel and knit something that was inspired by the book. We chose Persuasion, which we have all read 40 times -which makes what ensued slightly sad. Someone got the idea to knit something red (not capital letters... just a red thing) because of the militia. I then thought of Something Red, and a bunch of us started knitting. A few chapters into the book we all felt like idiots. This book has the Royal Navy, and their uniforms are blue. There is no militia in Persuasion. Quasi-literate knitters that we are, we kept going. Sigh.

I'm hoping to be finished with this project this weekend, but we'll have to see. I have a date with King Tut on Saturday and we're hanging out with Dave's mom on Sunday. We'll see what happens. If Dave drives, I can knit. But if Dave drives, we may not get there. Tough call.

OK, Dave's home. Here's the reality:

It's a little disheartening at this point.

Tags: knitting

Make a Joyful Noise

Somebody... anybody.

Dave and I are looking for a parish in our new east coast life. Actually, that's not quite true. I'm looking for a parish. He looked last year when he lived here alone, and quit trying in frustration. So I go off to church on Sundays and report back. So far, the best I've come up with was "it wasn't horrible."

The music in particular has been unrelentingly, laughably bad. My first thought is "they can't be serious". Is this God's people in amazing mediocrity? Or is it that people feel like they aren't entitled to better music? Or the priests and liturgists don't know how to charitably get rid of Matilda, who might have had a lovely voice 40 years ago, but since her hearing loss it's been a little dicey?

I can't believe that music doesn't matter to other people. Seriously, as a recruitment tool (not that that's the first priority of a parish) music is the smartest place a parish can spend its money. If the "celebration" of liturgy becomes instead an excruciating "Oh please God, let it be over soon" experience, what are we teaching people? What are we saying about the God who loves us? What are we saying about our standards?

Sometimes when people rant about the state of music in parishes, what they really want to see/hear is a return to the austere (and beautiful, I grant you) music of another age. Polyphony, perhaps. Maybe Gregorian chant. Or maybe just any pre-Vatican 2 hymn, not that those were uniformly great music. That, it will not surprise you, isn't my agenda.

I want a joyful noise. I want songs sung at a sprightly (but still appropriate) pace. I want accompanists who actually studied piano. Different kinds of instruments would be nice. I prefer choirs to cantors, but I'm flexible on that point. I want music that enriches liturgy. I don't want a performance (which is where polyphony and chant would err); it needs to be participatory.

I guess I have to keep looking. St. Cecilia, where are you when I need you?

Tags: Catholicism

Stepping Out

It's Wednesday, and Wednesdays are for knitting. Here we go:

The Horcrux socks. This is from the Six Sox Knitalong yahoo group. You have to be a member to get the patterns, but membership is free. You can't really see it from my lame photography, but there is a zig-zag pattern at the top that looks like Harry Potter's scar. Everyone else on the planet (it seems) was knitting these socks in March or April; I'm just now catching up. I tried the tubular cast on for the socks, which I've decided I'm not crazy about. For one thing, now the ribbing at the cuff and the ribbing at the foot don't match. (I know... nobody's going to call the knitting police, but still....) and for another thing, it's too loose. It looks sloppy and they slip down. I'll just be doing regular ribbing from now on, I think.

Then there are the Tulip Socks, designed by Isela Phillips: This pattern was written for loom knitting, but converting it is a no-brainer. It's actually harder to do on a loom. You can get the free pattern here: Loom Knitters Circle.


Now, these socks are just an embarrassment. They are a generic sock, made from Opal yarn. They were tossed in with stash, forgotten for literally years. You know what was unfinished about these socks? It was huge. A really big chore. I had to weave in the ends. Yup. But I can take credit for them this week, right? Two years in the making (insert eyeroll here), here they are: the purple Opal socks:













I've just started a fitted cardigan, raglan, single-button, with elbow-length sleeves from red Cascade 220. I have no pattern. I clearly need to come up with a catchier name than that, too. But it may not even work out anyway, so we'll see. I've also decided to tweak the pink math shawl to make it better. Soon it will be available for public viewing ;) And I am SO VERY wanting to make the Salsa, designed by Kim Hargreaves:
But I don't have the pattern, the yarn, or the time. So it's waiting.

Tags: knitting

Meditation for Forgiveness

Rabbi Michael Lerner from the Network of Spiritual Progressives wrote this prayer. It merits reflection and repetition today, I think.

A Bedtime Meditation/Prayer of Forgiveness

Building on the writing of my teacher Zalman Schachter Shalomi, I offer a prayer for every night of the year. It is particularly appropriate for 9/11 as we pray that Americans can let go of their desire for revenge and move to a higher level of consciousness, abandoning the fantasy that somehow "homeland security" can be achieved through militarism and dominating others (as the U.S.
Administration and its hired guns in Iraq are trying to do).

Let us pray for the healing of the fear and trauma that guides the policies of the U.S. government and many of its leaders. It is also appropriate for Ramadan and for the Jewish High Holy Days, days when we search our deeds and contemplate how far we have strayed from our highest God place within. We know that each of us is deeply imperfect, and though we have been wronged by others, our spiritual traditions teach us to move beyond whatever anger we've experienced to a place of forgiveness. We must start that process by forgiving ourselves, also, for not being all that we wish we could be, and for losing contact with our holy God place within us.

Our injunction for this period is: "To thine own God self be true"--but this can only happen if we stop incessantly judge ourselves for how we have failed on that path. Ironically, self-transfsormation which is the goal of this period of inner introspection can only work if we forgive ourselves. But then we must move on to forgive others...even others who have not yet asked for that forgiveness. Imagine how blessed our world could be if that path of forgiveness became part of the reality of America's relationship to the world, Israel's and Palestine's relationship to each other, the Muslim world and the West's relationship to each other, the Chinese and Indian and Western relationships with each other. And from that forgiveness we would move lovingly to change economic and political arrangements that are oppressive or hurtful both domestically and internationally. Well, we may not be able to make all this happen in the next few weeks, but
one place we can start is by using this prayer every night of our lives before we go to sleep.

Many blessings to you, and I humbly beg your pardon for any ways that I have hurt, offended or otherwise transgressed in relationship to you!
Rabbi Michael Lerner

Y'hi ratzon mil'fanekha, Adonai Eloheinu velohei avoteinu, shet'hadesh aleinu shana tova um'tuka. (May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our ancestors, that you renew for us a good and sweet year) God's peace on the sixth anniversary of 9/11/01.

Music and Social Change

Right here by Swarthmore, there is I-476, commonly called the Blue Route. It was a planned (and then new) route when my friend Becky was a student here, and she reports that there was discontent about its development. I'm sure it destroyed homes and businesses and beautiful land. "We sang folk songs against the Blue Route," she reports. Well, THAT helped -insert eyeroll here! So, okay, we probably suspected that in social change, music is neither necessary nor sufficient.

But, it can surely make a difference. It can be empowering, even if it's just my (already plenty powerful) mother barreling down the freeway, listening to Helen Reddy singing "I Am Woman". (Mom's tastes got kind of frozen in the 70s. Give her a break.) Or there's the equally ridiculous fact that I would sing my baby son to sleep with "We Shall Overcome". Or, for some slightly less silly examples, there's Farm Aid and Live Earth and Negro spirituals....

So, bearing in mind the twin truths that we have to do a lot more than sing, and that singing can inform a culture, here are some songs for peace:

• Those Three Are On My Mind; Kim Harris and the Magpies
• Well May the World Go; Pete Seeger
• He Was My Brother; Peter, Paul, and Mary
• Flags of Freedom; Neil Young
• Direct Action; Ani DiFranco and Utah Phillips
• What Did You Learn in School Today?; Peter Seeger
• What Made America Famous?;Harry Chapin
• My Name is Lisa Kalvelage; Ani DiFranco
• The Torn Flag; John Trudell
• Lord Help the Poor and Needy; Kate Campbell

Tags: activism iPod social justice

The Poverty of Nations

I didn't develop this quiz; the Friends' Committee on National Legislation did. I give something similar to students occasionally, as a conversation starter. See how you do. If you want more explanation of each answer, try this: Resources.


1. What percent of poor children are in families with at least one working parent?
a) 20%, b) 45%, c) 65%

2. About what portion of U.S. jobs pay too little to keep a family of four out of poverty?
a) one tenth, b) one quarter, c) one third

3. For large metropolitan areas in 1999, the number of poor individuals was split almost evenly between central cities and their suburbs. Since 1999, the number of poor individuals has grown faster in:
a) central cities, b) suburbs

4. If your income is below the poverty line in the U.S., are you most likely to be:
a) White, b) Black, c) Hispanic (of any race), d) Asian, or e) American Indian or Alaskan Native?

5. Which racial or ethnic group has the highest percentage of people living in poverty?
a) White, b) Black, c) Hispanic (of any race), d) Asian, or e) American Indian or Alaskan Native?

6. In 2005, 37 million people were officially considered “poor.” About how many of those people were living in extreme poverty – with incomes below half of the poverty threshold?
a) 15 million, b) 10 million, c) 5 million

7. About what portion of elderly people in the U.S. would be poor if they didn’t receive Social Security benefits?
a) 10 percent, b) 25 percent, c) 50 percent

8. About what portion of elderly people in the U.S. are poor, even though they receive Social Security benefits?
a) 10 percent, b) 25 percent, c) 50 percent

9. At the 350 largest public companies, the average CEO total direct compensation was $11.6 million in 2005. How long does it take the average CEO to earn the annual pay of a full-time minimum wage worker?
a) 2 hours, b) six hours, c) 1 day

See answers below. See more information on the answers to this quiz.

Answers to the poverty quiz:
1) c; 2) b; 3) b; 4) a; 5) e; 6) a; 7) c; 8) a; 9) a

Tags: activism poverty public policy social justice social work

The Shawl Saga

It's Wednesday, and I said I would post about my knitting on Wednesdays. Mostly it's for my DeKalb knitting pals, who no longer see what I'm knitting with any regularity. So here it is: the blue shawl I was working on when we left.

I didn't think to take a picture of it on the day we left. Instead, I packed it away and found a sock to work on in the car. There's always a sock to work on. We arrived in Swarthmore on a Friday. By Saturday, we were pretty grouchy with each other and the situation. So Dave suggested that I go exploring and find the yarn shop. Clever boy. And work on the shawl recommenced.

Here are the stages of getting it ready for delivery to its intended recipient:

First, the unblocked mess. I always despair at this point. This lace, I am sure, will be the one that doesn't respond to blocking. This lace will look like the dog's breakfast for as long as it lives, I just know. I will, finally, be revealed as the knitting fraud I am.













A close-up view, so you can fully appreciate the horror:

Well, I suppose I can't make it worse, so a-blockin'-we-go. Into the bath tub with your sad self. Imagine, if you will, how the bathroom now smells like sheep. Lovely.














I didn't have my blocking wires, so I threaded waste yarn through the border and pinned to that. It worked ok, but that's the purple strand that you can see at the edge of the shawl. That got thrown away, I promise. Here's the more or less finished product, drying in my furniture-free living room (I didn't think Dave would be wildly sympathetic if I pinned it to our bed, and we had to sleep on the floor. Knitters might understand. Mathematicians... not so much):

Apparently, the knitting goddesses smiled on me once more. The knitting rules still apply, and blocking cures all ills. The shawl has been delivered to my sister, with good wishes and hope that it warms her during her upcoming medical travails. Naturally, we forgot to take a picture of her wearing the shawl. I'll see if I can fix that the next time I see her.

Tags: knitting

Fair Trade on Labor Day

I'm still learning my new town. Truth be told, I'm still learning my new house. Resettling is very confusing, that's for sure.

So, it was with great triumph that I found the Trader Joe's grocery store. It's in Media, the next town over, and there's a sign on the door of the store that says that Media is the first Fair Trade City in the United States. Roughly it means that there is an official commitment to serve fair trade products at official gatherings, that there is a fair trade advisory committee at the city-government level, that fair trade products are readily available at local establishments... You can read about it here: Media.

Here's some stuff that social workers know. Globally, women comprise 70% of the 1.2 billion people making less than $1 a day. They provide for most of the needs of their families with food, health care, education, clothing and a safe place to live. They work an average of 60 to 90 hours a week, mostly as unpaid labor. And when able to generate income, women use a greater portion of their income then men towards the well-being of their family, paying for their children's schooling, better nutrition, and medicine.

Moreover, about 80% of fair-trade artisans are women, and most of them have children. Their income is used primarily for their children's needs, and their participation in a fair trade cooperative improves their lives and their status as family members and community members. Fair Trade is one of few activities that has successfully helped women and their children out of poverty

It's not without trouble and a need for nuance. Fair trade is not without its detractors. The concept, though, is so simple: to create a sustainable and just global economic system through fair trade (Fair Trade Federation). It makes my decision simple, too; it's worth the trouble and expense. The World Fair Trade Day website claims ‘Coffee, cocoa (chocolate), bananas, oranges and sugar are among the food sectors that most exploit child labour.’ Most of these products have a Fair Trade alternative.”

In the past two years of blogging I've talked myself into purchasing fair trade coffee. It's not that much more expensive than regular coffee, and I would know. I drink a boatload of coffee. I was worried that the switch would be a painful one. Seriously, it wasn't. Give it a shot. Now I'm moving on to fair trade chocolate, sugar, bananas, and oranges -starting with sugar and bananas, since that's what we purchase most frequently.

What else should I be doing? I'm open to suggestions.

Tags: activism Labor Day Fair Trade

Kids: They Grow Up and Leave You -the Little Ingrates!

The first year students are here and wandering around in wide-eyed wonder. Their parents are wandering around in a stupor, facing the parenting-music. Their children are taking yet another step toward independence. I wrote this little precis for my yoga buddies who are enduring this gut-wrenching transition, and they encouraged me to put it here. Bless their hearts, it makes for an easy resumption to blogging!

OK... listen up.... here's what you do. (I've taken two kids to college and -by the skin of my teeth- survived the experience.)

On the ride to college - It will just feel like dropping the kid off at camp or something. That part won't be bad.

When you get to the "hauling 18000 pounds of crap/valuable stuff up three flights of stairs (it's a law... they ALL live on at least the third floor, apparently) start distracting yourself. Marvel at how old and unfit all those OTHER parents are. Remark on how clearly gifted and stunning your child is compared to all the other students. Regular parenting stuff ;)

You'll need at least one trip to Target for the things you forgot and the storage things that will make that 18000 pounds of stuff fit into a small room with only one outlet and that's under the bed. That's like a puzzle. Engage with the puzzle. Do NOT think about why you have this puzzle to solve. No good can come from that.... you should have considered this that night 19 years ago when you conceived this child. Just buy power strips.

Now it gets hard and you just have to punt.

Go back to the room. Plug in a few things. Leave. Really. We tried the "let's go to lunch with your new roommate" thing. Don't. The college has things planned for them and they need to go to those things.

NB: They can not see you cry. They know you're crying, but if they see it, it gets them off-step and they're already nervous. "All" you have to do is smile, give hugs, tell them you're proud (don't lose it here) and high-tail it for the stairwell where you can cry all you need to.

And now you get to figure out who you are without daily parenting tasks. That's chapter 2. I haven't written that chapter yet ;)

Honey, I'm Home

Obviously, that's not what it looks like NOW. Now it looks sort of like a rain forest. That tree in the front yard is in full leaf, and it is a thing of grand beauty. I spent quite a lot of time yesterday parked underneath it, hoping to absorb some of its calm and perspective on change and time and ...whatever else it had to offer.

Moving is, well.... let's go with "interesting" as a descriptor. "Pure unrelenting hell" is perhaps an overstatement, but not by much. A temporary move presents special challenges. Every single thing in our large home had to be sorted into one of four piles: essential, take to Pennsylvania; essential, but don't take it -store away from the renters' use (like, say, the wedding china); leave out for the renters to use; why the hell did we have this, anyway???? I would have told you we didn't have a whole lot in that last category. I was appalled to discover the truth. Seriously, you don't need to donate another thing to the Goodwill. We have met the needs of the poor people of the world for the foreseeable future. (Assuming, of course, that they aren't offended by the state of some of our junk. I would be, if I were them.)

Then we packed up our little car like the Beverly Hillbillies and started across the country. Math-Man's driving skills are the stuff of legend. In the interest of my own mental health, I tried to sleep through as much of his turn as possible. I decided that he thinks of the road as a race course. He doesn't drive that fast, although I did see 85 mph at one point. But he does race-driver-like things. He changes lanes in a curve, so the car is driving as close to a straight line as possible. He doesn't bother to signal these turns, because surely that's what everyone does (???). When I ...ummmm...expressed mild concern, he said "I have to have some optimization problem to work on." I thought, but did not say, "You could work on...oh, I don't know...optimizing your life span." He accelerates until he's smack on someone's bumper and then changes lanes. In traffic jams, he'll get insanely close to the car in front of us. Sleep. Really, it's the only solution that allows for marital harmony.

Now our three pieces of furniture are unpacked, and we're discovering all those things we ought to have packed. Honest-to-Pete conversations: (remember that Dave was here for spring semester of the previous school year, so had some supplies and furnishings in storage)

Me: You have a few spices, right? (I knew he wouldn't have many.)
Math-Man: Oh, yeah. Sure.

(I've found salt and pepper and paprika that I think belonged to the previous tenant.)

Me: I don't need to pack our everyday silverware, do I?
Math-Man: No, I took some stuff.

(We have two spoons and two forks.)

But all of this is, in the end, trivial. See.... I did learn some stuff from my wisdom-tree! We're in the same place, at the same time, getting ready to start new adventures. And when I start to freak out (which is approximately every third breath), I'll go sit under my tree some more.

Flooded Hometown

Our neighbor, fellow parishioner, and colleague Dave Changnon (a specialist on climate change, as it happens) took these pictures of our flooded hometown. This is the bridge closest to our house:


This is my beloved bike path:


I don't think this tree is usually submerged:


Holy mackerel.

Social Change For Real

If you poke around the internet, a bookstore, or even your church bulletin looking for social justice activities, what you'll really find, most of the time, is charity activities. I've written about this a lot -and not just here- but you might look here for a pretty typical Andrea-rant on the subject: Needy Among Them. As with so many undertakings, the prevailing belief seems to be that people want the quick "feel good" project. And sometimes we unapologetically do.

These projects tend to go like this: you donate money, you call your elected officials, or you do a quick little trip to the food pantry with your extra food (or whatever). I do these things, and they need to be done. But I can't pretend to myself that they change the world.

To do that we need to think a little more globally. We need to examine and reflect upon the society we have. We need to challenge it where it's not meeting people's needs or the needs of the planet. And then we need to fundamentally change ourselves and our own actions. And then, at long last, we need to model these changes for other people to see. It wears me out a little to notice that most writers and organizers believe that people only want the easy route.

Get yourself on a board of a non-profit. Challenge committees/groups you're already in to adopt non-hierarchical models of governance. Make sure there are leaders of those groups coming up behind you. Mentor people from "the community of need" to assume leadership roles within the organizations. Challenge sexist and racist and homophobic language. Community supported agriculture? Use some new technology that without a doubt I don't understand to build community, to report news, to offer alternative perspectives, to exert some control over what we hear about and how we hear about it?

The thing is, we have to look at everything. What is the next right thing that I can do to make the world better? The questioning ought never stop. The people who write "1000 Easy Activities for Social Change" do important work. But even they underestimate us.

So what are you doing today? Why that? I really want to know.

Tags: activism social justice social work

Churches in the Proper Sense

Oh, honestly. I spend a lot of time in dinner party conversations encouraging people to refrain from making judgments about the Catholic church based on what they hear on NPR. That's still good advice, I suppose. But this time, the news is as bad as it seems in the popular press.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which the current Pope used to head) released a document called "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church." A fairly woeful title, it must be said. It's a short document; you can slog through it yourself with very little trouble. But the short version is that the Congregation (with, of course, the approval of the Pope) claims a unique legitimacy for the Catholic Church and its eastern brethren who share in apostolic succession. The churches born of the Reformation aren't, so the claim goes, churches in the proper sense but merely ecclesial communities.

According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense.

This news, of course, has been received with varying emotions -none of them good- from the so-called ecclesial communities. I've seen offense, pain, disdain, a smidge of outrage -and I understand all of them. As important as it is to remind the Pope that his word is not Holy Writ on this subject, there are two more important points, it seems to me.

The first is, though the document of course does not deny that Christ is working redemptively in Protestant churches, it is claiming that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome is the defining issue of the church. That is an issue worthy of division, it seems to me - one of the essential claims of the Reformation itself. Martin Luther and John Calvin both claimed that the first mark of the true Church is, rather, the preaching of the Gospel. The Reformers indicted the Roman Catholic Church for, in part, failing in this task and thus failing to be a true Church. The Catholic church returned the favor, defining the church in terms of the papacy and magisterial authority.

So, this could turn into a theological bit of playground hair-pulling. "You're not a true church! Well, neither are you!!!" Or, if Protestants behave better than the Vatican has, it could serve to convince the Protestant churches that their mission is, in fact, fundamentally different from that of the Catholic Church. The Vatican might inadvertantly have re-energized Protestants in their mission in the world.

Secondly, even if we Catholics take a deep breath and agree, arguendo, with the document, it doesn't follow that the primacy of the Pope is the only important thing for "churchiness". In fact, the claim of the document is somewhat broader. Its claim is that the sacramental priesthood is the essential. (It's just that the sacramental priesthood requires apostolic succession, which in turn requires bishops who can trace their authority, through the pope, back to the apostles. Hence papal primacy.)

OK, now I'm not just chagrined at the papal judgements of other religions. Now I'm worried about my own. I am very much not inclined to put priests at the center of any definition of church. According to Lumen Gentium all Catholic lay people share in the ministry of Christ. Catholic lay men and women, by their baptismal and confirmational character, are empowered to be priests, prophets and kings and so to share in the Church’s ministry of sanctification, teaching and governing. Lumen Gentium states that, in collaboration with their bishops and clergy, “the faithful who by Baptism are incorporated into Christ, are placed in the People of God, and in their own way share the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, and to the best of their ability carry on the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world”. (31)

The aftermath of the sexual abuse scandal has been a return to clericalism, and I would suggest that this trend turns its back on an important part of our tradition. Sadly, it seems to me that this new document is a step towards formalizing that trend. It's hard for me to believe that it's going to take us anywhere good. It puts the institution (the institution of the priesthood and the trappings of the church, I mean) above the importance of the message it exists to serve. I'm thinking that we should spend a little more time worrying about whether or not we are a church in the proper sense, and less about other institutions' merits.

Make Some Noise

I find myself a little tired of the Friday Random Ten. I may still do it from time to time. Today, however, is one of the few days I have carved out of the insanity that is my life to attend the Blogher conference. It just seems wrong to post a random selection of my raunchy music when there are all these people here thinking about ways to use technology to make the world better. This much idealism in one place! It almost makes me feel like a realist -and that takes some doing!

So, in that spirit, here are ten "change the world" songs. Add yours if you like. I'm always open to new music.

• Those Three are on my Mind; Kim Harris and the Magpies
• To Everyone in All the World; Cathy Fink
• Well May the World Go; Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie
• The Women Gather; Sweet Honey in the Rock
• The Farmer is the Woman; John McCutcheon
• We Are the Ones; Sweet Honey in the Rock
• He Was my Brother; Simon & Garfunkel
• Flags of Freedom; Neil Young
• Direct Action; Ani DiFranco and Utah Phillips
• The Day They Closed the Factory; Harry Chapin

Tags: activism iPod social change

Much Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

The background, me lovelies.....

I'm running around trying to get in doctor and dentist apppointments with the practitioners who actually know me and my convoluted ways. That's thing one in this story. The second thing is that we don't have a television, so dentists' waiting rooms are frequently where I catch up on television. I hear people talk about it, of course, but I rarely actually see the images for myself.

A few days ago was the dentist appointment, and surely that ought to be horrible enough. But apparently there is no justice. The television was on in the waiting room, and it was set to FOX News. I've heard. I thought I was prepared. Oh my God in heaven. I was so very not prepared.

The show was on domestic violence -a subject I happen to know something about. I'm predisposed to be irritated, I suppose, because it makes me mad when an important issue is treated as sound bites and truisms. So, I'll admit to having a little chip on my shoulder as the segment began. In spite of that, I have to admit that the story itself wasn't terrible. It was typical of a kind of family violence. It was told in a straightforward way.

There was only one huge ideological gaffe in the story itself. It didn't mention shelters and safe houses. Weirdly, I almost didn't notice; I'm just so comfortable with the existence of shelters that I assumed everyone knew about them. I came around to noticing the ommision during the banter between the show hosts.

This is where things got ugly. These guys clearly didn't know about shelters either -wondering whether or not women leaving abusive situations should just "run into the woods". Now seriously... how can you put together a show on domestic violence and not get far enough into the research to discover that there are shelters?

Hang on for more.... Because women in abusive situations have no options, they believe (and I concede that their options have been woefully and illegally curtailed), women need to be really careful whom they date. Well, thanks for the heads-up there, fellas. But how might we be that careful? Any diving into the research will tell you that in the dating phase, abusive men are often charming, polite, gentle, -not changing until after marriage or a more permanent commitment. And even if we could know, this is starting to sound just a little like blaming the victim. "She wasn't careful enough in her dating choices. How very sad."

OK, the hosts didn't go quite that far, but they skated closer with the next comment. I didn't get an exact quote, but it had something to do with the men being psychotic and therefore not fully responsible for their behavior. So, if a woman isn't careful enough and accidentally ends up with one of these psychotic guys who hurts her, we can't really expect him to take responsibility. So, who does? Yeah.... I got that message.

Mercifully (and who ever thought I would write this sentence???), I was called back for my appointment and the television show went on without me. I'm blissfully back to my "no TV" life and am oh so grateful to live in ignorance of its programming.

Tags: activism feminism social justice social work

WIP-It Wednesday!

My brain is rebelling a little bit. I can't quite think how to link my knitting to the alleged purpose of this blog -figuring out how to make the world a better place. Yet, I do want to keep in touch with my local knitting buddies, and I know for a certain truth that I can not maintain two blogs.

"WIP" is knitter-talk for Works In Progress. So I've decided to do WIP-It Wednesdays, with updates of my knitting. Perhaps a link between knitting and building a better world (aside from the obvious charity knitting) will become clear. Stranger things have happened. In any case, I hope my knitter friends respond and tell me what they're knitting. Otherwise -and until I connect with Philadelphia knitters- I might end up losing touch with reality and making crocheted ripple afghans out of Wal-Mart acrylic, or some other crime against humanity.

All I have at this point are projects that look unremarkable to say the least. Before the day is over, I will locate the camera and its attendant cords and upload pictures. But the short version is this.

I have the Bed of Roses shawl -so close to done that I'm in the "must start new project" danger zone. It is destined to become a wall hanging (not that I've figured out the details of that operation) in our new house. The goal:


I also have just started the Irish Diamond lace shawl from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls book. The goal:


And I have the lace cardigan from the most recent Knitters magazine on the needles, but barely started. This cardigan starts in the middle (althought not with a provisional cast-on) and works up. Then you go back and work down for the rest of the sweater. For the life of me, I can't figure out why. However, I started this sweater the night before Dave came home. My daughter and some friends decided that we needed a bachelorette party that night. Since I didn't have one when the time might have been more appropriate, we went for it. So, the short version is that I was a little tipsy when I cast on for this sweater. Therefore, I -uncharacteristically, to say the least- decided to follow the directions, on the off chance that there was a reason for them. I still don't see any such reason, but I'll keep you posted. I can't find an on-line picture of the finished sweater, although I'm sure at least one exists. I'll keep at it.

Pictures of the much less exciting actuality are forthcoming -unless the camera is already in a box. But I don't think it is.

Tags: knitting WIP-It Wednesday

Ravel-Rouser

OK, I'm here. Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. Two things have happened while I've been quiet.

One -Dave is home. It's so good to have him home I can't even tell you. Of course, it's also true that, were this a date, I'd have to tell you it's going very badly. We're awkward with each other and a little prickly and a lot uncertain. It'll be okay -as long as he remembers to wipe his toothpaste dribbles out of the bathroom sink. No.... what I meant was.... it'll be okay. I'm just grateful to be able to hear another person breathing and working and puttering around the house. THAT's golden.

And the other thing is that I got my Ravelry invitation, at long last. It's a social networking geek-fest for knitters. Oh my GOD! It's still in beta, but the creators have done just a fabulous job of thinking through what the technology can do for knitters and crocheters and other fiber geeks. If you ever looked at a piece of yarn and wondered what you might be able to do with it, go get yourself on the invitation list. I'm in love.

Thing the third.... My local knitting buddies have asked that I start a blog (clearly they don't know that I HAVE a blog) re: my knitting projects while I'm away in Pennsylvania. So, brace yourself for slightly more knitting than I've let myself get away with in the past. You social justice types might just get converted to knitting. The knitters might read a bit more about my leftie politics -and with any luck, like me nonetheless

Writ Large

Remember, back in the old days, when rights were cherished and protected? You younger readers may have to struggle a bit, but you don't just have to trust us. You can read about the days when the U.S. Constitution was protected by our elected officials. Now I'd be pleased if I thought the President had read it at all.

In part, it says this:

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.

The writ of habeas corpus is a civil proceeding by which a court inquires as to the legitimacy of a prisoner's custody. Typically, habeas corpus proceedings determine if the court which imposed sentence on the defendant had the jurisdiction and the authority to do so, or whether the defendant's sentence has expired. Habeas corpus is also used to challenge other types of custody, such as pretrial detention or detention by the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement pursuant to a deportation proceeding.

It's been suspended, I need hardly tell you, and the Executive Branch will argue that our state of national emergency demands it. The consequence for the inmates at Guantanamo Bay is that they are, for the most part, detained indefinitely, without charges. But that's them, you say? Surely, they're the bad guys. Hang on; it gets worse.

On January 17, 2007, Attorney General Gonzales asserted in Senate testimony that while habeas corpus is "one of our most cherished rights," the United States Constitution does not expressly guarantee habeas rights to United States residents or citizens. It's actually in Article One, Section 9. Is it TOO much to hope that the Attorney General could locate a copy of the Constitution? It's not exactly out of print. It's just fallen into disuse, that's all. But if his interpretation is upheld -or unchallenged- the suspension of the writ could extend to U.S. citizens. A small slice of comfort here is that the Supreme Court did affirm the habeas rights of citizens, even if they have been declared to be enemy combatants.

A bill, provisionally called the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, S. 185, passed the United States Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, June 7, 2007. Arlen Specter joined the Democrats in supporting the bill, which the Committee passed on a vote of 11 to 8, without debate. The bill would restore the right for Guantanamo captives to access the U.S. court system under the principle of habeas corpus. A version of the bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives (H.R. 1416) as well. Moreover, on June 29, 2007 the Supreme Court agreed to hear outstanding habeas corpus, opening up the possibility that they might overturn some or all of the Military Commissions Act.

So, you might consider chatting with your elected officials about this. This is the first time that Congress has considered an up or down vote on restoring the writ of habeus corpus. If you want to see a sample letter, try this one: Act for Change.

Tags: activism, social justice, social work

Prostrations for Peace

I'm back -literally and metaphorically. I'm finished, as far as can be known, with travels until we move in August. So I'm back home. And I'm back, in the sense that I'm going to go looking for my blogging voice and see if I can get back to working to create a world of justice and peace. In my own little ways, you understand.

So, in that spirit, here's an event you might be interested in: Prostrations for peace. I heard about it through Franklin, whose blog you really should be reading. If you don't want to follow the links, the idea is this. On Sunday the 15th, like-minded souls are going to gather at North Shore Pier in Chicago, starting at 5:00 in the morning and staying straight on until sunset -or for as long as you like. For whatever time we're there, we'll meditatively confront the suffering "we the people" have caused with our various wars around the globe. People will meditate, prostrate, practice yoga, pray... whatever spiritual practice soothes and offers succor to the world.

My plan is to meditate, pray, and practice yoga. Prostrations are probably beyond my temperamental abilities. So now I'm musing on what kind of yoga practice might be appropriate. I'm leaning towards some sort of heart-opening practice, but the details are not yet clear to me. I imagine that the details don't matter very much, either ;) The point is, we're gathering and in our own ways looking for a spiritual dimension to the important work of ending war in general and these particular wars.

Namaste.

Tags: activism Prostrations for Peace

Memory Bracelet

Rachel has a March of Dimes memory bracelet here: Rachel Grace. If you want to make a donation that will benefit other babies born too soon, please do so.

What Would You Do?

My family is slightly dotty about babies, and I'm probably at the head of the line in the dottiness department. So, I did some knitting for Rachel before she was born. She has a few blankets from her Auntie Andrea -although one wonders why I made blankets for a summertime Alabama baby. Undeterred by logic, though, I made them. They are at her parents' house and one of my sisters, who is already there helping to prepare for the onslaught of relatives, is rounding them up and putting them away until, perhaps one fine day, they provide solace rather than an opportunity for more tears.

But... the piece de resistance is still here with me. Unfinished. I was supposed to have plenty of time. It's a pink, lace hoop-di-do christening shawl. Do I finish it, in her memory and just pack it away at my house? I can't imagine that I'll want to give it to another baby. Do I leave it unfinished? Finish it and offer it to her parents?

I know full well that Rachel will not ever need this blanket. She died on Thursday. (I have to keep saying that so it gets into my head.) But I've been steadily knitting on her blanket since Thursday. Some part of me needs to finish this gift, apparently.

At this point, it's ugly. It's unblocked lace that I've cried all over. Baby blankets with mascara stains.... not a good look. But both those problems will resolve themselves in the wash. My only thought right now is that maybe I could finish it and donate it to a fund-raiser for research about premature infants.

But I'm open to other suggestions, up to and including "pull yourself together.

My Heart is Breaking

I say that a lot. It's the curse of the empath. But really, this time I mean it.

Rachel Grace Buford, my niece, was born on Wednesday and died this morning (or possibly, technically, it was still Thursday. The details aren't really important.) There were simply too many medical hurdles for her to overcome. With all the strength in her tiny little fighter's body, she just couldn't do it.

Her parents (my brother and his wife) did the mind-bendingly loving thing and signed her off the machines that were sustaining her, and held her until she died. I hope that she knew, in whatever time she had with us, that we are her family and that she was perfectly loved. I hope she knew she was our perfect Rachel, and that we were honored by her presence.

Godspeed, little one.

Asking for Trouble

Do you have blogs you read -or people you see, or organizations to which you belong- that annoy you no end, but you read (or see or participate) anyway? What is up with that? Why subject myself to this repeated annoyance?

There's this blog. It's written by a thoughtful mathematician -not the one to whom I am married, although their fields of inquiry are similar. He muses about his religiosity, his teaching, technological geekery, his kids, a bit about politics now and again. He's politically, theologically, and morally conservative. I had really hoped that there was a possibility for dialogue, since clearly there is intelligence and reason here, and not an inconsiderable amount of shared experience. Unfortunately, I have not been successful.

I don't accept for the tiniest moment that there is something about conservativism itself which demands arrogance or sanctimony or shallowness. The conservative (and liberal, for that matter) pundits with those traits get a lot of air time, I grant you. But that's not the fault of conservatism, exactly. And of course I reject completely any notion that I am arrogant or sanctimonious or shallow ;) So, why has there been no dialogue? Why do I even care?

Temperamentally I am drawn to good questions over good answers. An elegant question can blow open a problem that seemed intractable moments before. That is such an amazing and fun experience, who needs cheap and easy answers? I am dissatisfied with an inelegant answer when there's another possibility (which means that this blog post is going to be a frustration, I can just tell.) And I almost never rule out the possibility of more than one answer. I'm not claiming that this is a better way to be; it's just the way I tend to approach things.

Conservatives seem to have different needs. Correct me if I'm wrong. Really. But among conservatives there seems to be an interest in THE TRUTH. And once you have it, of what use is dialogue? Evangelization might have a place, since you would certainly want to share the truth with other people. But dialogue and tolerance become less important.

But none of that helps me to understand why I bang my head against the wall, when there seems to be no possibility of anything constructive happening.

The sharp partisan divide in the nation's political culture scares me. A lot. I don't like the image I get when I imagine the legacy of this political climate. Two entrenched camps, with no mutual respect and a good deal of mutual name calling. Sound bites replacing thought. Stereotypes replacing evidence. Fear replacing inquiry. We're disturbingly close to that picture already.

We have to talk to each other. We need to seek common ground. We don't need to agree or convert each other or become best buddies. We do have to, in my estimation, be willing to learn from each other and to see each other as reasonable and ethical people. And that's why I read and comment on blogs that make my heart hurt.

But I don't get any sense that I'm making a difference.

A Sad Task

Mysteriously -miraculously, even- I made it to O'Hare as early as they suggest these days. This trip is possibly the first time I've managed to do that. Of course, this time I didn't need to be there that early, but there's no telling in advance.

So, I sat at the gate with my knitting (the sock that will not die) and made some progress, drank my over-priced Starbucks confection, and people-watched.

Uh-oh. There's a hearse on the tarmac. There's an Army-person (I don't know anything about rank, but he was only a little younger than me. Age-wise, that could well translate into considerable rank.) standing very straight, wearing his dress uniform, and carrying a wrapped flag. Oh hell.

There was a precise and actually quite lovely ceremony while they put the casket onto the plane. The captain made a gentle and, I thought appropriate, announcement that our plane was carrying the remains of a fallen soldier and asked us to observe a moment of silence. There was another little ceremony as the body was removed in New York. Then presumably he was taken to his...mother...wife... children... family of some sort, and a different sort of ceremony could begin.

We ceremonialize the early stages of grief because we couldn't endure it any other way. We would just be crushed by it. I don't know anything about this soldier, other than the obvious fact that he died for nothing. I know a bit, though, about what's going on with the innocents left behind. It cannot help to know that their son (in this particular case, it was a son) died because of our President's willingness to look us in the eye and lie.

My thoughts turned, though, to the business, organizational end of this war-time death. There must be many soldiers like this man in the airport, whose job it is to accompany bodies, deliver folded flags, and give mothers and wives the "thanks of a grateful nation." There must be piles of crisply folded flags in plastic, for just this occasion. There must be warehouses full of caskets, I suppose. I know there's a mechanism for shipping a dead soldier's personal effects back home. I know this because my brother once told me that military personnel are told to sort through their things and ensure that there's nothing they DON'T want shipped home.

It would be foolish not to plan for the war-time ceremonies of death. It would be cruel to abandon them because we're overwhelmed by the numbers or appalled by the war itself. Yet, if someone ever hands me a folded flag -please God, forbid!- especially as a result of such a war as this, it will not help to hear that my loved one died defending his country. It would not help me to use these dignified ceremonies as a blindfold, to prevent us from seeing that the whole thing is a tragic farce. I would be enraged rather than comforted, if a flag were offered in such a spirit.

And, of course, it is offered in exactly that duplicitous spirit. Watching these ceremonies was literally the first time that it occurred to me that President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and all the war supporters didn't just lie to us. They lied to and abused the nation's military personnel also. And how utterly tragic to have such a man as your Commander in Chief, to whom you have promised your obedience.

Shame, shame on all of those war planners.

And to the family of this particular fallen soldier, whoever you are, I'm praying that your heart is not hardened and that you find some comfort, somehow. Bless your hearts, all of you.

Tags: activism

Conjugal Visit Weekend ;)

I'm off to Philadelphia/New York/New Jersey to visit Math-Man and for the wedding of one of his nephews. This nephew is, I suppose, also my nephew, but he's Dave's sister's son. So... more his nephew than mine, somehow. Interestingly, one of the first "dates" Dave and I had was shopping for a birthday present for this nephew, who was about to have his first birthday. Yikes.

Idle thoughts this morning -when, after all, I'm supposed to be packing. (I suppose I ought to be PACKED, but that's a problem of rather long standing. I do almost nothing until it's necessary AND urgent.)

Thing 1: When you have 48 hours a month with your partner, each hour takes on a lot of importance. That's not really fair -to anyone. For one thing, we're really on this whirlwind tour for our nephew. It is, in fact, not about me. (WHAT????) And secondly, this 48 hours isn't more important than any other weekend. Yet, when you're apart for long stretches of time, you lose the smoothing-out feature that regular contact provides. If I'm crabby or having a bad hair day or distracted, in my regular life that gets averaged in with all the other times when I'm patient, or lovely (it could happen, I suppose), and focused. In this long-distance relationship, if one of us is crabby when we get together, that's the memory we have for a month.

I don't know what to do about that. I think reconnecting when we finally live in the same house again is going to feel like dating. Which could be good, but has a scary edge to it as well.

Thing the Second: A friend brought a friend of hers to our local Sit and Knit. This new-to-me friend is just beginning a year where she is living apart from her husband. The shared friend thought we should meet. Our conversation went like this.

New friend: I'm deciding to think of this as an adventure.
Me: It's so hard.
New friend: I'm reconnecting with old friends and learning things (e.g. knitting) that I've always wanted to learn.
Me: It's so hard.
New Friend: I'm just trying to stay busy.
Me: It's so.... (Then my brain finally kicked in. YOU ARE NOT HELPING ANYTHING WITH YOUR WHINING. Shut the heck up.) Emergency re-frame ensued.

So, there are more people doing this strange living apart thing than I would have imagined. And I need to practice more empowering and compassionate chatter about this situation. Yes, it's been hard. I don't even know if it's been worth it, when you weigh one thing against another. But I have learned a lot. I have (almost) survived it, so I know that I can do it again if I have to.

There's more.... but really, I have to go put some clothes in a suitcase, and prepare myself for some serious...conjugation ;)

Highway to Heaven

Somebody save these people from themselves. There are days when there is no need for satire; people take care of it all by themselves.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, offers us the ten commandments for drivers.

1. You shall not kill. (This one is covered elsewhere, I'm almost certain!)

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm. (How about a way of getting from point A to point B? One wonders when the Cardinal last drove.)

3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events. (Vigilance comes to mind as another good idea.)

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin. (Much of my high school dating - ruled out. Cars...occasions of sin... fond memories)

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so. (I wonder when he last tried to take the keys from an impaired person. The charitable thing is to get the keys, by hook or by crook. Don't worry about obtaining them charitably -although I suppose you could start there.)

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness. (Oh man. Now we know he doesn't drive much -particularly not in Rome.)

9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.


We're also supposed to pray in the car. He particularly recommends the rosary.

Okay, let's think.

Yes, car accidents are responsible for an insane number of deaths, injuries, and general tragedy. Yes, people use cars foolishly, dangerously, and flagrantly, to boot. It really could be appropriate for religious leaders to speak out about some of this.

And I'm not offended that he used the ten commandments as a pedagogical tool, although I do wish I'd been at the meetings where they came up with the ten. I do pray in my car -and not only in the "God save me from that moron" kind of way. I think, in fact, my rosary is in the car at this moment.

But does he really think that the most important thing that the office of migrants and itinerant people should deal with is drivers? I'm thinking refugees from wars, starvation, disease, and hurricanes might have other ideas. A riff on "I was a stranger and you made me welcome" might have been more appropriate. The mission statement is on the website, for crying out loud.

Get back to work, fellas. There is much to be done to create a society that Jesus might have envisioned for us. And telling me to pray the rosary while I'm driving kind of misses the mark.

Tags: Catholicism social justice social work

The Writing on the Wall

I had the weirdest experience this morning. Standing in the shower, running through my mental list of the 4 jillion things I need to do today, *pop* a writing project that I've been ruminating -but doing nothing specific- about jumped full-blown into my head. The organization, the structure, the chapters, the examples, they were all right there.

I was supposed to go for a long bike ride today, but I didn't. (Which is good, because the weather is seriously strange.) Instead I've been glued to my computer and this project I didn't know I was ready to start.

It must be said, there's some oomph needed to get these ideas wrangled onto a page. There's a big difference between clarity at the organization level and simple, clear sentences on a page. But, at least for my writing, there's no point in starting the sentence crafting until I have a sense of the broad strokes. Not that I don't reserve the right to work backwards and change the organization, too. I just like to start with a plan, even if I disregard it almost entirely.

So, that's all for now. I just wanted to let you know what I was doing, in case I start to ignore you. I'm writing.

Until Thursday, when I go see Math-Man for a 48-hour whirlwind tour, where -let us fervently hope- I am not spending my time writing ;)

Veiled Threat? Veiled Glory?

Chapel veils. We have to talk about chapel veils. WHY are we still talking about them, for crying out loud?

In my growing-up days at Catholic schools, we wore head coverings when we went to church. Our school uniform had a little beanie that we wore to chapel. By high school, the older students rejected the beanie for chapel veils (the abbreviated version of a mantilla -just to be sure we're all on the same page). Of course, the custom was taken to its absurd extreme if the beanie and the chapel veil were both unavailable, and a girl pinned a kleenex on her head -which happened with some regularity.

Of course doing that, presumably in an effort to follow the letter of the law, pointed out the absurdity of the rule in the first place. How is a tissue a show of respect, for heaven's sake? I was a kid. I didn't give the whole veiling tradition a moment's thought. I wore a chapel veil just because one did. Until gradually, I didn't because no one else did either. There wasn't a rebellion. It just didn't happen any more.

We know that there's a swing back toward conservatism in the church - paralleling, I suppose, the swing toward conservatism in the general population. And, no big surprise, (except of course I WAS surprised) I'm seeing chapel veils in church again. And the reasoning is as confusing as it ever was.

First off, let's be clear. It is not a rule that women have their heads covered in church. People who think that the rule was never rescinded, merely ignored, and that they are championing some sort of return to orthopraxis are just plain wrong. I have no patience with people too lazy to do the research yet with the arrogance to make strident assertions.

Another argument I hear is that it's a sign of respect toward ..... something. Respect toward what seems to vary -the liturgical space itself, the Eucharist, God.... OK, the veiled woman could, in fact, intend respect by wearing a chapel veil. I am unqualified to judge her intentions. But HOW is it a sign of respect?

There are differing opinions about that as well. It could come from the Hebrew scriptures and the urge there for a woman to cover her hair -her crowning glory. Lest what? In the middle of Mass some guy is going to be distracted by a woman's come-hither locks? Seems improbable somehow. There are only two possibilities that I see here. Either a woman's hair is private and naughty, and should be covered in public just like other "private parts," or men are so weak they can't be expected to control themselves. So the head covering protects women from those marauders. Nonsense, on both counts.

Other people maintain that the practice comes from Paul and that it's actually empowering. (This REALLY makes no sense to me, but I'll give it a go.) The claim from Paul is that when women teach in the assembly, they should be covered. So the deal is that women CAN preach to the assembled gathering, so the head covering is a sign of leadership.

The heck it is. Men are required to remove any head covering in church. Of course, regular guys don't wear hats much these days, but you can see the remnants of this rule when the bishop removes his episcopal miter before presiding at liturgy. It seems to me that the most we can claim (and this is a stretch) is that where the culture's customs involve more total veiling and sequestering of women, head covering might allow a woman to *gasp* be modest enough to stand in front of a group that presumably has men in it and still teach. In this culture, where women stand in front of groups and teach all the time, to make the rules different in church ...well, it's hard to see that as empowering. And besides, the Scriptural evidence suggests that veiling is all about a man's headship over a woman, and arguing that that's empowering... well, I can't quite see how that's going to work.

Really, I'm inclined to believe that wearing a chapel veil these days is either a sign of aggression or weakness. I distrust myself when I say this, but some people really seem to be saying "watch me be more pious than you are" with their behavior. And those people annoy the heck out of me. Other people seem to be looking for a visible sign of membership in a group. Really, go buy a crucifix necklace and stop distracting me at church. Please. I have enough to worry about without my graying frizzy -uncovered- hair being a sign of rebellion.

Tags: Catholicism

An Important Local Cause

The boys and girls at the local bike shop are truly a municipal treasure -empowering, causy about biking without being militant, and a lot of fun, to boot. It turns out that one of them is also a Type 1 Diabetic, and they have established a team for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Ride to Cure Diabetes in Whitefish, Montana.

The four team members are trying to raise $16,000. They are inspired to take on this adventure by a young shop-employee and friend. Alex Bowden has lived with Type 1 Diabetes for most of his life and has worked hard to ensure that his disease is not his disability. He is a junior national champion cyclist and is a member of Team Type 1, a group of elite cyclists living and racing with Type 1 Diabetes.

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly, disease that affects millions of people--a large and growing percentage of them children. Many people think type 1 diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, it is NOT a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with type 1 diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease.


That's the bad news... and yes, it's pretty bad.


The good news, though, is that a cure for type 1 diabetes is within reach. In fact, JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. And JDRF funds a major portion of all type 1 diabetes research worldwide, more than any other charity.

One of the team members has established a "ride-page" here, if you'd like to donate on-line or monitor the progress of the donations. Please contribute as generously as you are able.

Tags: activism biking

Friday Random Ten

You know how it works. Set your iPod to shuffle and tell us the first ten songs that play -no matter how embarrassing. Here are mine for the week:

• February Song; Josh Groban (It's 93 degrees outside. This song's not working for me today.)
• I Need You; LeAnn Rimes
• Un Amore per Sempre; Josh Groban (again? What's up with that?)
• Cookin' in the Kitchen; Keith Frank (moving on to zydeco)
• Love Without End, Amen; Randy Travis (a good song for Father's Day, actually)
• Southern Cross; Jimmy Buffett
• Serenade for Strings in C Major -Waltz: Tchaikovsky (for some unrelenting schmaltz)
• You're Easy on the Eyes; Terri Clark (in the pissed-off-woman category)
• You've Got Me Flying; Holly Near
• It's Raining on Prom Night: Grease soundtrack (Surely the ultimate in the "poor, poor pitiful me" category)

Tags: Friday Random Ten, playlists ,iPod

Social Work as a Subversive Activity

This is one of the recurring themes of my life. I suppose I want to be more subversive than I really am. But still, there is evidence that what we do changes the world, threatens illegitimate and immoral power, and occasionally involves significant risk.

Certainly one can be a social worker who writes case plans and grant applications, stocks food pantry shelves, or makes the beds at the homeless shelter. That person can do a lot of good in the world. It's no small thing to perceive injustice and set out to right it. Yet, sometimes there's a visionary who changes -or tries to- entire social structures.

Zakia Zaki was such a person. As the owner and manager of Peace Radio and a headmaster of Jebulo Seraj girls' high school in the Parwan province of Afghanistan, she battled injustice in spite of (or because of) the fact that women are facing renewed barriers in both education and public media in Afghanistan. Tragically, she was shot and killed inside her home (in front of her children) early in the morning of June 6.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Challenging social structures is not without its perils. And my heart breaks for her and her children, her students, and the people she served through Peace Radio. All of them are impoverished by her death.

But no woman is an island, either. We were all also enriched by her life and her witness to a world with fewer foolish barriers. Godspeed, Zakia.

To learn more about her, you might watch the DVD, If I Stand Up. Developed by UNESCO in 2005, it documents the political life of women in Afghanistan.

Tags: activism, feminism,social justice, social work

Friday Random 10

You know how it works. Set your iPod to shuffle and tell us the first ten songs that appear. And no fair leaving out the ones that make you look like a dork or adding in ones that you think make you look cool.

Here are mine for the week:

• Tara's Theme from Gone with the Wind; Henry Mancini (oh my... we're off to a good start. It's from an Oscars Night playlist.)
• Bad to the Bone; George Thurogood
• Only the Lonely; Roy Orbison
• Toss the Feathers; The Corrs
• It's Too Late; Jo Dee Messina
• Piano Sonata No. 11 in Major; Mozart via Glenn Gould
• Chicago, That Toddlin' Town; Rosemary Clooney
• The Prayer; Cecilia
• Petit Papa Noel; Nana Mouskouri
• Southern Star; Alabama (Oh southern star, how I wish you would shine and show me the way to get home!)

Tags: Friday Random 10, playlists, iPod

Wrap Your Brain Around THIS

Today is the 42nd anniversary of the legalization of birth control in the United States.

Wait. I'm 48. Birth control was illegal (as opposed to merely unavailable) in my lifetime?? Yup, Griswold v. Connecticut challenged a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." Passed in 1879, the statute was almost never enforced. Attempts had been made before 1965 to test the constitutionality of the law; however, the challenges failed on technical grounds. But finally, the Supreme Court decided that there is an implied ("penumbral" they actually said... isn't that lovely?) right to privacy in the Constitution and that enforcing the Connecticut statute would violate that right.

And here we are, 42 years later and we've made so much progress. (Did you catch the sarcasm there?) We use taxpayer money ($1 billion of it during the Bush administration, to date) to teach abstinence-only sex education that, shall we say, lacks a certain intellectual rigor. The 130-page National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations fails to mention the option of emergency contraception for rape survivors. Women in the armed services don't have access to abortion services at military medical facilities and using those facilities is, for all practical purposes, a requirement of their medical insurance. In some cases, they have been denied emergency contraception as well. Some pharmacists here and around the country want to stop filling prescriptions for some kinds of birth control.

Wait.... I'm not finished.

On his first day in office, George Bush reinstated the global gag rule, prohibiting the recipients of U.s. international aid from providing family planning assistance. House passed the so-called "Abortion Non-Discrimination Act", a sweeping refusal clause that allows any health care entity to discriminate against any provider who provides or even gives information about abortion. There's so much more. Lest anyone doubt that the Bush administration is waging a way against women's sexual self-determination, try this link: Planned Parenthood.

True enough. No one is bothering me or people like me -much. Middle-class women safely married (to men), who have medical insurance and the time and education to advocate for their own care, are comparatively safe in any decision to control the size of their families. Yet even there... there's no guarantee at all that our children will have access to accurate information, that our daughters in the military will have access to services...

I have long resisted the notion common among feminists of a certain age (MY age, that is) that a pro-choice position is a litmus test for authentic feminism. But, the conservatives are very close to changing my position on that. I can not sit idly by and watch my daughter's -and everyone's daughters'- life choices defined by their reproductive organs. To that end, there's a small something we can do, and honestly, even the pro-life feminists (who are, in fact, out there) can support this one, I think.

There's the Prevention First Act, designed to reduce the need for abortion. It would provide money for family planning assistance and compassionate care for rape victims, mandate accurate and timely sex education, and end discrimination against women's health care by insurance companies. Read it over. See what you think. Discuss it with your elected officials. It's important.

Next year at this time, I don't want to be writing some sort of historical missive about the good old days when birth control was legal.

Tags: activism, feminism, public policy, social justice, social work

Between the Sheets

I want to talk about books and reading in bed. Cuz ain't nothing else happening between MY sheets until Math-Man gets himself off his bike and back home. (stopping there, lest this post get away from me)

Reading in bed has become a new experience these past 10 months. When Math-Man and I lived together, I frequently went to bed before he did, announcing that I was going to read for a while. "For a while" meant about 5 minutes, apparently. I would fall asleep with the light on and my glasses still perched on my nose. He would come upstairs later and tend to the Andrea-housekeeping. Alas, during this year I've woken up more than once with the light still on, my glasses lost somewhere in the bedclothes and using my book as a pillow. This will not do. Change number one is that I have to choose books for night-time reading that will keep me engaged enough that I don't konk out before dealing with these end-of-the-day tasks.

Problem #2 with reading between the sheets is that the book can't require so much thought that my brain starts to race and then I can't sleep at all. Virtuous claims that I will, at long last, get through Proust are for naught -at least in the context of bedtime reading.

So, with those requirements for engaging but not deep reading, here's what I have so far.

• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast by Bill Richardson
• Window Poems by Wendell Berry (one of my literary loves)

What are your ideas? What are you reading?

Tags: books, reading

Getting Out of my Own Way

More musings about what I've learned this year...

I'm afraid it's nothing brilliant. What's worse, it's something I was supposed to already know. Worse yet, it's something I know for other people. Well, damn.

When I work with people trying to learn something new or people in desperate straits, I frequently say things like "stop putting barriers between yourself and success." Or, more positively, "let's streamline this process." And I can help people with that. I'm even kind of good at it - making sure they have the appropriate tools and skills to do the thing they want to do, gently redirecting (sometimes transparently) people to a task that is a more appropriate next-task. The general idea is to make the right decision or the right strategy the easy one to choose. This won't always work, but when it could, why create unnecessary difficulty?

But I don't do this for myself, ever. I got seriously ill at the tail end of graduate school. I went to see my teacher to make arrangements for finishing his class while undergoing appalling treatments. His comment was "Andrea, you don't always have to do things the hardest way possible. Take an incomplete." Oh. Right. And it's not as though I got out of grad school yesterday and this is a fresh lesson for me to absorb.

Nope. I'm still at the back of the class on this one. I've been defeated by my own house. And I've decided that it's not my fault -which is always a better position than the "I'm so stupid I can't do these things" position ;) Most recently the culprit has been the lawn mower, and the poor thing has become the metaphor for the changes we're going to be making around here.

I don't mow the grass in ordinary times. There are other tasks I do to contribute to the running of the household, but not that one. Dave did it. Then there were the halcyon years of the kids doing it. Then they grew up and left us, and Dave did it again. Not me. So I -naturally enough- was uninvolved in the purchase of new lawn mowers over the years. Do I care what kind of lawn mower we have?

Well, I should have. We have a lawn mower that I can not start. I'm too bloody short to reach to the end of the cord, and it just won't catch. If someone else starts it, I can mow the grass well enough. But how ridiculous is that? It feels plenty absurd, let me tell you.

I don't even know how old this lawn mower is. But when it dies, I'm going to the lawn mower store (are there such things?) and participating in the purchase of another one. I may never again mow the grass after the completion of this year. I hope I don't, in fact. But I have to be able to. I have to stop letting barriers get erected between me and success. I have to stop participating in placing those barriers. (This is sounding eerily familiar.)

The lawn mower has to go. And all the other "lawn mowers" in my life.

Tags: sabbatical musings

Friday Random Ten

You know the drill. Set your iPod to shuffle and tell us the first ten songs that appear. And no fair leaving out the ones that make you feel like an idiot. (Sometimes I feel like I have the world's biggest collection of embarrassing music. Yesterday I had people over and the iPod, set on shuffle, playing through the stereo speakers. Suddenly I hear Rosemary Clooney singing "Here Comes Susie Snowflake, blasting through my house." Well, now.... Picture making a beeline for the stereo!)

• The Honor of Your Company; Tom Paxton
• Tombeau Sur le Mort de M. Conte d' Logy; Weiss via Segovia
• Night in that Land; Nightnoise
• Eastlander; Steven McDonald
• Anything Goes; Ella Fitzgerald
• Song of the Traveling Daughter; Abigail Washburn
• Walk or Ride; The Ditty Bops
• Missing You; Alison Krauss
• Farther Along; Emmylou Harris
• I've Got Better Things to Do; Terri Clark

Tags: Friday Random Ten, playlists, iPod