We the People, not We the Dollars

June 5 - Reverb Broads

Come up with a new Constitutional Amendment. 

From the book Art and Soul

We The People - all the people - not just the men, not just those with pale skin, not just those of a particular religion, or particular socio-economic position - ALL THE PEOPLE.

The United States of America is a remarkable place.  Over two hundred years ago a group of men were able to sit down and create the framework for governing that is still followed today.  In the subsequent years, the document has been amended to clarify and further the rights of the citizens. In general, the amendments do not restrict the rights of persons. Instead amendments to the Constitution of the United States provide more emphasis to those rights that should be innate, but that power and societal norms had previously suppressed.

With this in mind it seems that amendments, like that on Minnesota's November  ballot* should be defeated.  Amendments that limit the rights and responsibilities of people should not be. Period. Amendments should exist to further protect ALL people.
It seems that both the federal and state governments have moved away from one that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." It seems that it has become one that is "of the money, by the money, for the money." Money is the power and influence in politics.  Political decisions are made not in the best interests of the constituents, but in the best interests of those who have the the most money.

Perhaps the remedy is somewhere in campaign and political finance reform. 

For example:

A candidate running for office may only solicit and accept funds from those citizens who are eligible to vote for the candidate.

Any person eligible to vote for the president of the United States may contribute to any presidential candidates's campaign fund. Any state registered voter  may contribute to that state's senate or gubernatorial candidates.  Any city resident and registered may contribute to that city's mayoral candidates. However, a citizen in California may not contribute to a gubernatorial candidate in Virginia.

And only human citizens.  Not corporate ones.  In the spirit of secret balloting and to limit the power of influence, contributions MUST be anonymous.

Further to this:

Any entity (person, religious group, corporation, non-profit, small-business, etc.) may make contributions towards educating the populous regarding an issue before the government.

Any person or thing can fund the issues, however it must be in the form of educational advertisement and subject to a bare minimum of journalistic integrity.  No contributor may be anonymous. With regard to the issues, one must be able to put their "face" with their money.

Are these likely to be successful? No. One could quite easily make the argument that this limits freedom of speech. 

If successful, would they make a difference? Who knows.  Still the idea of returning money to commerce and away from political influence seems like a good idea.

Another possibility is declaring that corporations do not have the same rights to as individuals.  Ideally politics should be separate from the influence of money.  I know that's a pipe dream.  In a world where buying some pizzas for the manufacturing staff also buys "loyalty" to a freight company, it is foolish to think that money can only be commercial and power only be political.  But it is wonderful to dream that we and our politicians would make decisions based on the best interests of all and only those involved.

___________
*The question on the ballot is "Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?"

For the record, this amendment must be defeated. Regardless of one's opinion of gay marriage, this is an amendment that interferes with the daily lives of good, hard-working, society-benefitting citizens of the state of Minnesota and the United States of America. This is an amendment that restricts the rights of all people. If you are a  Minnesota voter - Pledge to Vote "No"!

Admirable Attributes

June 3 - Reverb Broads

Who are your role models? 

Suggested by Dana

Here's the thing.  I don't really have any role models.  There aren't any people out there whose personality and achievements scream out to me "I am your ideal, Amy." When talking with my mom this morning, she agreed.  She doesn't have any role models either.


Of course, that is really just another tally mark in the "Amy is her mother's daughter" box.  What we didn't talk about is that there are certain characteristics that people have that are admirable. But as a whole, I think any one person is far to flawed for me to want to follow in their footsteps.


Both of my parents are certainly role models.  I have the painful blend of my dad's get-it-done and my mom's-get-it-done-right mentalities. But on the whole I think I am far more willing to give up than they are.

My cousin, Gretchen, has an unabashed enthusiasm for life that if combined with that of Ms. Ronning would likely power the world for eons. There are times when I could use a little more self-motivation

My little brother is quick-witted, loyal, and helpful. Not that I'm not, but he is well-entrenched in his community; I am not.

Mrs. J and Mrs. K were two of the best math teachers any student could have and the problem-solving skills they embedded in me have served me well through the years. There are few people in the world who are good at explaining things, and explaining things, and then explaining them another way, and yet another way until the student grasps the concept.  Me, if I've explained something once, maybe I'll be able to explain it to another person again, but at that point, I just really wish that everyone would know everything.  In other words, I aspire to have more patience with the inevitable omniscient-lessness that fills the world.

My current boss has a great way letting the team solve problems and helping clear roadblocks without forcing any one agenda on us. He believes in the team and believes we will find answers and move forward, even when we do not. His quiet optimism helps lead us through the darkness when the team's congenital cynicism leaves us at a loss.

There are more characteristics out there I aspire too, but those listed above are those that seem the most universal.

Those Damn Cows

June 2 - Reverb Broads

What gives you nightmares? 

Suggested by Kassie

This is where I grew up. This where my dad grew up.  This where his dad started working in the 1930s. It's mostly white-trimmed red buildings and a red-trimmed white farm house; it's a dairy farm in southern Wisconsin.    


I was a farm kid.  I fed calves, milked cows, scrubbed the bulk tank, swept the feed alleys, and all sorts of other chores.  It was my identity. It was who I was.  Who my parents and my brother were. Who my aunt, uncles, and grandparents were. Just so you know, that's not the nightmare part


It pretty much stayed that way until I was 20 or so. Now, realize, by this point I was a junior in at a college in Chicago.  I had no intention of going back to the farm.  That was not who I was or wanted to be.  But it was part of my identity.  A HUGE part of my identity.  In fact, really it was the only way I knew how to identify myself.  


Then, one afternoon I got a phone call from my parents.  They were going to sell the cows in June and the machinery the following January.  They weren't moving, they were just going to stop being dairy farmers.  No more cows. No more working the fields themselves; they would rent out the land to other farmers.  My mom had already started working off the farm.  My dad was going to get a job. I was devastated.  My friends still laugh at how I came into their dorm room with tears streaming down my face. They thought someone had died. What I couldn't explain to them is that someone had. Part of me had. This is still not the nightmare part.


It's been over 16 years since that fateful day. Since that phone call, I have never been home again when my parents were farming.  They've made a wonderful life for themselves. They have become something in addition to what they were. And nope, still not the nightmare part.

This is the thing dreams are made of.
In my case, bad dreams.

I have these dreams where I have to go back home.  My parents have decided that getting back into the dairy business is a good idea. I have to help.  In the dream from just a couple of nights ago my mom and I milking.  The cows keep popping their heads out of the stanchions and are attempting to walk out the east doors of the barn into some bright morning sunlight.  The cows are between me and the open door.  I attempt to sneak ahead of them to close the door, but only succeed in scaring more cows out of their stanchions and chasing them cows out the door.  There is yelling and anger. There are cows all over the yard and it is impossible to corral them.  There is the part of me that can't understand why in the bleepity bleep bleep BLEEP! we are milking cows again.  Even if it's just for a month or two to get some extra cash. And of course, nothing is going right.  


That's the nightmare part; something that I thought was gone comes back and haunts me. I have absolutely no control over the situation.  The life I have built for myself irrelevant is in the face of milking the damn cows again. It is so painful and so stressful. Unlike the dreams where I've skipped class all term and it's time for the final or I show up someplace naked or partially dressed I can't find resolution in the farm dreams. That's the nightmare.

Laura Elaine Warshawski?

June 1 - Reverb Broads

With what fictional character (book, movie, TV, etc.) do you most identify? Why? 

Suggested by Kristen

As a kid I loved The Little House books.  Having recently read A Little House in the Big Woods, I was glad to see my love vindicated. The books are simple and true of spirit, and are filled with the foibles of being alive.

I won't say I necessarily fantasized about being Laura. But growing up on a dairy farm on the prairie in southern Wisconsin certainly did lend itself to easy day dreaming. I, too had to round up cattle at the end of the day, milk cows, and feed calves.

Laura must keep it from spilling the milk, if she could, and she had to teach it how to drink, because it didn't know.  She dipped her fingers into the milk and let the calf's rough tongue suck them, and gently she led its nose down to the milk in the pail. The calf suddenly snorted milk into its nose, sneezed it out with a whoosh that splashed milk out of the pail, and then with all its might butted into the milk.  It butted so hard that Laura almost lost hold of the pail.  A wave of milk went over the calf's head and a splash wet the front of Laura's dress (Little Town on the Prairie).

Oh, how I knew Laura's plight.  Teaching calves to drink from a pail is a pain.  Literally, their milk teeth have sharp edges and it's not unusual to get one's fingers pinned between the butting nose and pail bottom. Even though I grew up with other farm kids, it was comforting to know someone else, someone I didn't know had to deal with the same issues. Laura helped make chores a little easier to get through.  She had to deal with the same things.. And let's not forget I am a brown-haired blue-eyed daddy's girl.  Like Laura, I take pride being someone my "Pa" can depend on to help.

However, I am not, completely like Laura.  The money I earned from baby sitting was my money;  I didn't share it with my parents to help pay for my brother's schooling. I have never had any desire to be teacher.  Having gotten married at the ripe ol' age of 35, I can't imagine being married at 18 to a farmer. Actually I can't imagine, at any age being married to a farmer, but that's another post for another time.

Where Laura represented my confident rural youth, Cat's Eye's Elaine Risley spoke to my pained and alienated self.  Like Elaine, I had friendships troubled by mercurial loyalties and pre-teen and teen insecurities. I often wished there was a way to simplify my feelings towards my friends. “Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.” Like many women I find myself in a place where I can neither like nor dislike a peer, but by virtue of our proximity feel we must be friends.  How I wish I could have learned to let the negative forces in my life float away with no regrets. And like Elaine, when I perform an act of kindness, I know the the truth. “I'm a fool, to confuse this with goodness. I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly.” I know that I am looking to see in what way my act of kindness will benefit me. What debts have I paid. What credits I have earned.

The wonderful thing about fiction is how one can finish a book and go on to the next and become an entirely different person.  Where Laura and Elaine represent the two sides of my childhood coin, V.I. Warshawski represents, at least partially, who I have become.  We both came from nowhere-near-upper-middle-class childhoods to attend Chicago universities.  We're take no prisoners tough (well, she is, I'm still working on it). We are willing to research issues to find the answers and proud to be pinko-commie-liberals, Chicago-style.

I'm proud to be Laura Elaine Warshawski.  Who are your fictional doppelgangers?

I Don't Watch TV

 I do not watch the daily offerings of the media giants, their broadcast minions, or their wannabes. I don’t watch the news. I don’t watch game shows. I don’t watch soap operas, reality shows, sitcoms, or teledramas. I don’t wait with bated breath for the next episode of Mad Men to air. I don’t know who can dance, or who I should idolize, or who's got talent (well, that's not necessarily true--Facebook friends tend to post the best of the best and include links to pertinent performances).

How cool is it that Matt Smith carried the Olympic torch?

Now, admittedly, through the glory of iTunes and a high-speed internet connection I can watch Mad Men, Justified, and Doctor Who almost as soon as the episodes air, but on my schedule and without commercials. The last time I watched TV on their schedule? The most recent season of Downton Abbey and even then several of the episodes I watched days later through the miracle of digital recording. I suspect the next time I watch TV on their schedule will be the 2012 Summer Olympics (and not just because I want to see if a stadium full of people just disappears).

This is not to say I don't spend time in front of a screen or two. My husband and I spend our evenings in front of at least one screen, and usually, between the two of us, there could be as many as five screens in use—two smart phones, two laptops, and the television. But we make a conscious choice on our media consumption. The biggest thing that separates us from the average television consumer is that we are not exposed to 15-20 minutes of advertising for every hour we spend in front of the television.

Calvin spent a lot of time applying
his television-fueled imagination
 to the great outdoors.

Television is not necessarily the source of all evil and will not necessarily rot your brain out. I do think that excessive time spent watching poor quality television sprinkled with commercials is the media equivalent of eating Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs to the exclusion of a healthy diet. It's fine to have a bit of over-frosted sugar-laden teeth-rotting media now and again, especially if the rest of time is spent consuming the media equivalent of large numbers of fruits and veggies in combination with healthily prepared protein. However, I'm pretty sure every commercial is like covering that healthy meal with a thick coat of high-fructose corn syrup-based candied crapola.

If you don't think of this every time you're
 moving furniture or hear the word "pivot"
 well, I just don't know that I know who
you are.

I also think that bonding over the shared experience of an episode provides a dose of vital nutrients to social relationships.  And that's just it, I'm no longer able to join into "water-cooler" chat about last night's episode of whatever the newest must-view show is. Nor do I know what the latest must-have item is. By consuming most of my television media months and years after it originally airs I am several steps behind in some conversations. And that my friends is how I know I don't watch television.

What do you think?

Did You Know . . .?

To Be Perfectly Frank Has Moved!

It's only taken me almost five months to have Jon enter his username and password on the site he used to buy my Christmas present domain name and me to make the two mouse-clicks to move it.  Sigh.  Perhaps had I known it was that easy.  Anyway, update your bookmarks; www.2bperfectlyfrank.com is up and running (or should be by 10 Monday morning--the internet can't always be depended on for immediately performing tasks.  I know, I know)

There Are Such Things as Hummingbird Moths

Last weekend, while working on the garden, I noticed a hummingbird in the lilac bush.  Now, I have to tell you, I was little confused.  First of all, lilacs don't seem like the sort of big red flowers that hummingbirds tend to visit. I don't know about you, but I think of hummingbirds as mid- to late-summer sort of birds, you know, the season when there tends to be a lot of big red flowers around.  Also, this bird seemed to have muted colors when compared to the images in my head. Not to mention that they are called humming birds for a reason, this thing didn't seem to make much noise.   When closer inspection revealed antennae and that the creature looked for all the world like a flying brown shrimp, I did begin to suspect my earlier identification.

The moth hung around long enough that Jon was able to go get his camera and get a decent picture.

See the long tongue thing coming out of its "beak"? 

Well, it does a crazy curly thing like this.

So, it turns out that the humming bird is actually a moth, likely a Hyles lineate.


Oh, and if you did know there was such a thing as a hummingbird moth, please take into account this equation about knowing things from XKCD. Don't forget to read the hover text.

We Have Barred Owls

Moths and other insects aren't the only flying critters we have around here.  Our windows look out over a semi-wooded wetland which makes for some great bird watching. We see ducks, geese, bats, mosquitoes, red-tailed and sharp-shinned hawks, bald eagles, blue herons, and lots of lots of other creatures.  One of our favorites has been Willhelm, a barred owl (a.k.a Eight Hooter, Rain Owl, Wood Owl, and Striped Owl, but is probably best known as the Hoot Owl based on its call).  And since barred sounds like bard and William Shakespeare was the Bard of Avon, the owl became Willhelm (with a German accent and pronunciation, of course, because that's just a lot more fun to say). Willhelm has a lady friend, Emily (Dickinson, poet and using the definition that a bard is any poet, the name follows the theme). Or perhaps Willhelm is Emily and Emily is Willhelm.  I don't really know.  There are two of them, we've never managed to a get a good picture of the both of them.  Jon has managed to get some great pictures of Willhelm though.

We haven't seen them much of late, mostly we just hear them, "Hoot, hoot, hoo, hoo.  Hoot, Hoot Hoo Ooo."

We Also Have a Library (and an office)

As a lover of books, the idea of having my own personal library has long been a dream.  When we were looking for a house, one of the things I wanted to find was a house with a library.  As it turns out, we fell in love with a house that didn't have a library (it's all about the windows), but had the potential to contain a library.  And now it does.  With fiction alphabetized by author and non-fiction grouped into categories and then alpha-by author or editor.  Contrary to others' beliefs my method of organization is perfectly acceptable nor does the room need to be messier so that it's calmer.  It's calming and pleasing just the way it is.  And hopefully, after next weekend the window seat will have a calming and pleasing custom-made cushion.

Camaraderie on Two Wheels

Image from Salsa Cycles

We here in the Midwest have been enjoying an abnormally early and warm spring.  The 80 degree days in March (in MINNESOTA!) and now April's warm sunny days have brought the bikes out in full force.  A year after I broke my thumb falling off my brand new bike I now seem to understand its quirks.  This bike brings me back to that black ten-speed.  It's quick and nimble.  A gentle lean side to side is all that's needed to steer. Being out on this bike, in the spring, dodging the geese and road debris, reminds me that I can be an athlete.  That I can be healthy and strong.  And for me, being morbidly obese, that's important.
When I say morbidly obese, I am not exaggerating. I set a goal for myself this year:

• Lose 52 pounds
• Try 52 new recipes 
• Read 52 novels
• Read 12 books of non-fiction

At that rate, it will be the end of 2013 before I am down to a healthy weight. At Week 15 I am slightly ahead of pace on pounds, well ahead of pace on recipes, and on pace for both book categories.  

On my bike, especially when I'm riding by myself and don't have to compare my efforts with other riders, I feel like I look on the outside like I feel on the inside.  I feel active and powerful. I feel healthy.

What surprises me most about riding, though, is how friendly a community it is.  I don't know if it's the nature of Minnesotan cyclists, but we're an amazingly supportive bunch.  Sheltered in our cars, we rarely acknowledge the other drivers around us, except in anger or frustration.  As pedestrians, even on a leisurely stroll, we're much the same. On paths and sidewalks we may nod our heads in greeting, perhaps even flash a the bare minimum of a smile, but in general the social walker is consumed in conversation with their walking partner or the noise saturating their brain from their implanted ear buds.

But the cyclists, particularly the spandex-clad, solitary riders on quiet country roads, we greet each other. Hands are raised, grimacing smiles shared, helmeted heads are bobbed.  We know that person on the other side of the road.  S/he is me. Yesterday, when I stopped to adjust my under-helmet bandanna, another rider zipped by on the opposite side of the road.  Hands were raised in greeting and that other rider was assessing my situation. Was I stopped on the side of the road because I had damaged something on my bike (flat tires are a real and present danger)? Or was I merely resting?  And I'll bet you, dollars to doughnuts, that had I appeared to be having mechanical issues, that rider would have crossed the road to assist.

One time, having taken a knee-bloodying fall from the bike, Jon and I were on the boulevard patching me up.  Three people stopped to see if we needed assistance.  A cyclist, a mini-van with a bike in the back, and (after half an hour on the side of the road) a man who had seen me fall from his kitchen window. The mini-van? That driver saw us, but was going to fast to stop the first time. She went around the block and came back to check on us.

Another time I broke my bike chain while we were several miles from home.  I camped out on a grassy knoll by a church parking lot. The Saturday service let out and car after car passed by me as I sat on the grass waiting for Jon to ride home and return in the car to take me home.  Not a single head in a single exiting car turned to assess my situation, much less stop and see if I needed assistance.  Now, of course there could be many reasons for this.  I'm sure I seemed quite calm;  I knew assistance was on its way.  There were no signs of physical harm; despite my complete lack of grace, I didn't hurt myself when my chain gave way. Yet still, my presence didn't elicit any concern from the vehicle-clad people exiting the lot.

We cyclists tend to be a solitary and  independent lot.  We re-live that sense of freedom that came with the first bike ride every time we hop on our current bikes. I suspect many of us are introverts who shied away from team sports. But we take care of each other.  We acknowledge each other as part of the family.  We are comrades on pedals. We recognize our fellow cyclists as one of our own.