Hoping your recipe for this week included the right amounts of work, play, love and laughter.
I'm up nice and early. Really quiet now. Enjoying the first cup of coffee I siphoned off the drip coffee maker. It's a strong one. None of that ballerina water for me thank you very much.
A good cup of coffee is one of the simple pleasures isn't it? This particular cuppa I made from fresh ground dark roasted beans. I love the taste, smell and the way the coffee perks me up.
I don't subscribe to the idea that you can have too much caffeine from drinking coffee. I don't think any of my family does either. I remember my Gram asking for "just a half cup" as she got older and was having some high blood pressure. She'd end up drinking three or four half a cups as we sat around visiting. She was a good woman. I think the best one word I could think of to describe her is feisty. She had a strong sense of opinion on politics, a good knack for storytelling and liked to laugh. She also loved her family very much and was kind. Good combination.
I was lucky to have her around when I was a youngster. Living with a reading teacher helped me learn to love to read and think. I wish I could think like I used to. I have a touch of that CRS nowadays. Just kidding. I believe we have the opportunity to sharpen our minds and keep them sharp as long as we live.
One small thing that sticks in my mind that would describe my Gram for me was an incident in grade school with one of her students. I think I was a first grader and she was teaching sixth grade. I can't recall why but I happened to be going by the lunchroom in the basement of the school about 9 or 10 in the morning. I saw Gram sitting in the lunchroom with one of her students. He was eating a jam sandwich she or one of the cooks had made him. Upon further investigation I found, she thought he seemed hungry in class (or maybe he told her he was hungry) so she had taken him, and I guess left the rest of the students to read on their own, to get a jam sandwich. You can't read if you have to think about how hungry you are...She loved her students and her work, which made her really good at what she did.
I have been blessed with being around a variety of really good teachers in my lifetime. And a couple of insane (in not such a good way) ones. I won't bore you with those.
Being a teacher must be incredibly satisfying, knowing how important your role is in shaping young peoples outlooks. My wife is a pre-school teacher, as was her mother. She loves her little 3 and 4 year olds. They love her too.
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We had a lunchroom when I was a kid. Now schools have cafeterias. We had a lunch...no selections. One of my favorites was baloney, macaroni (no sauce) and tomato soup. That sounds kind of plain, but I liked it. I still remember scraping my plate into the big cans as we left. Those cans were then taken by a local farmer to slop his pigs. No waste. I'm guessing there is some rule about feeding food scraps to pigs these days. Or maybe it just isn't economically feasible to save scraps and feed pigs. I have no idea where pigs are raised where I live. I've never seen any. I've read about some huge pig feedlots in South Dakota and Iowa maybe. That must be where we get a lot of our pork now. The Corporation that runs that feedlot probably isn't going to drive to Washington to pick up food scraps from the school cafeteria. I'm not even sure if a Corporation can drive?
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I finished the Jim Hightower book, If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates last night. It's not a very rosy picture Jim paints. Maybe I'll read Donald Trump's book or something by the GE guy to balance my brain. Maybe not. I kind of think Jim has hit the nail on the head in a lot of cases.
One of the most surprising things for me was the description of our politicians/government involvement in the sweatshops in Saipan. Basically people from Southeast Asia are shanghied to work in Saipan which is defined as a U.S. territory thereby eliminating any nasty tariffs while at the same time exempting the big Co's that run the sweatshops from U.S. labor laws or influence by labor unions.
The living conditions are terrible, bosses abusive and the people (mostly young women) are trapped on the island for years paying off their debt as indentured servants....just to make enough money to get back home.
The good thing is that young people in Colleges are recognizing this and forcing their college administration to not do business with the Companies participating. The level of awareness is trickling into the general consciousness (must be if it penetrated mine).
There are a fair number of jackass politicians who travel to sunny Saipan for paid holiday's/fact finding missions in the cold winter months in the U.S. They don't actually visit the sweatshops or barracks, but are instead given a tour of the island, golf courses etc. by the Corporate reps.
Old Jim recommends starting at the local level rather than trying to influence National politics. It's tough for me to read and think about the things he says that make the Democratic and Republican national parties, and candidates, just about the same when it comes to money grubbing to satisfy special interests rather than standing up for democracy. Nobody is going to talk about the sweatshops in Saipan this election year...or the outsourcing of American jobs, decline of the middle class, wage erosion due to creation of many service industry type jobs, while we lose family wage jobs to the low bidders in India, Malaysia, Phillipines or other countries that don't need to worry about health care, labor unions, government interference (OSHA or other nit picky stuff).
I shouldn't have said no politician is going to talk about any of the real challenges our country faces, but I could say no national politician is going to change that, unless that change aligns with the Corporate agenda. They might pay some lip service to it, but can't afford to change it. Otherwise they couldn't afford to run for office and they most certainly would never get any legislation past Congress...since most of those blighters are on the same meal ticket.
Maybe in the future things will circle back to where our country once was a true democracy. I think it's inevitable once the vast silent majority gets sparked.
I was lucky enough to be able to participate in some of the activity (parades, marches and listening to speeches...none of the violence thankfully) that came about when the WTO convention was held in Seattle in November 1999. It was very hopeful to see the coalition of real people that came together to just say no. It was very hopeful. Teamsters and Greenpeace...AFLCIO, international labor reps speaking. Regular Joes getting together to listen.
Around that same time, in February/March 2000, I got to participate in one of the largest and longest professional union strikes in history. It was great. I loved standing around those burn barrels. It was also great to get back to work since I'm a little to hyper to spend a lot of free time without the focus I get from working....plus the salary thing.
The future's so bright I gotta wear shades. What an exciting time to be a young student...primed up to change things. Lot's of energy and idealism.
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I’m really a firm believer, or try to be at least, in St. Paul’s advice to the Phillipians -
"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9
This guy has some thing to say about Saint Paul and this site has some positive
Apple Seed Good Thoughts
I believe it’s best to not get too carried away on one thing or on one track, but just for the heck of it though I like to browse through things like this The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid.
PS. Now that I read a little bit of that "conspiracy" page and noticed Rush Limbaugh linked to it, my bullshit detector just went off. Something smells funny. I thought it was a populist site from the title, but it looks like someone getting paid to promote an agenda. Or at best someone with a confused sense of reality promoting a single minded overly simplistic conspiratorial view of the world that appeals to overly simplistic conspiracy minded __________ (fill in whatever label is appropriate in your world view.) I'll use "jackasses" in keeping with my own complex non-conspiratorial view of reality :-)
I gotta get back to charm school now.
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It's zucchini time where I live. I have a big fat zucchini sitting on the counter someone at work gave me. I'm hoping it turns into chocolate zucchini cake soon. Those cakes are so good and moist.
I don't know the recipe. I just know how surprised I was to have my first bite of one. You can't taste the zucchini at all, it just gives the cake texture and moisture. I have to be extra nice to the baker this weekend, see if I can get that cake.
There's a Blog devoted to Chocolate & Zucchini. Wonder what else you can make besides the cakes with chocolate and zucchini?
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We had an amber alert where I work this week.
Not really. That's just what a friend said to me after a can of pop froze and exploded in one of the community refrigerators.
Someone left a can of soda in the freezer overnight and it exploded. It was one of those little mini fridges, with the freezer on top. There isn't any door on the freezing compartment so the pop blew out into the main fridge onto the door, on people lunch bags, basically all over.
I'm not naming any names. I'll plead the fifth. We had some laughs over it. It doesn't take much to entertain me. My wife told me I should have said really loudly, "who the hell left that can of pop in the freezer...man I can't believe some people." I just quietly did my best to wipe up the spillage and shared my little secret with a few associates, who think goofy human things are funny.
I forgot about that can of pop even though I had made a little sign for my desk that said "Pop's In The Freezer" to remind me...and also so I could write "We Should Let Him Out" and put it on a friends desk. I changed the sign to "Pop's in the Refrigerator" after the unfortunate explosion.
At least it was diet pop.
Some people never change.
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I was reading some not so good reports about the water level in the Jefferson River. Also reading some interesting stuff about making water into a commodity to sell to the highest bidder. That will be interesting if the global climate changes result in populated areas having real water shortages. The article was talking about some place in California where they wanted to buy water by the super-tanker from Canada. The Canadians weren't so sure they wanted to sell that much water given the potential impact on the eco-system. It'll be interesting to see how water rights get settled if it becomes more than an agricultural issue, considering the controversy that has brought about over the years. Hard to envision when people need water for drinking/bathing/cooking particularly if it's being sold for profit.
Trading water, like they were doing with electrical power futures, was one of Enron's future brainstorms before that house of cards fell in. Maybe just a matter of time.
I guess we can always buy Dasini or Aquafina. Who would have ever thought Coca Cola or Pepsi Co. could sell us water for more than water mixed with sugar and flavorings?
Hey that reverse osmosis costs money buddy! It isn't just tap water you know.
I got to visit the local water supply and treatment plant with my kids elementary school one time. We have great water right out of the tap, from a high mountain lake called Spada Lake.
I also got to spend a bit of time in India where there was often no running water and I couldn't drink anything out of a tap if there was one. Too many little floaty things for my digestive system.
Off shore indeed. No pesky taxes to contend with to provide a public, clean supply of water.
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I read the story of Job a couple of nights ago. It made me appreciate the ministry. I need someone to tell me that story in a shortened simple form. I can't follow the whole thing. I did figure out Job had a lot, lost it all, and then got it back. There's a lot of wrangling around with Job, his advisors, God and the devil that I can't keep up with. I think the moral was that God wouldn't throw anything at you with out giving you the ability to cope with it. I can't figure out why Job was picked, because he seemed like a good guy, unless the point is that God did him a favor by causing all the miserable things that happened to him and then allowing him to live to be a wise old man.
I should probably stay out of the Old Testament without a guide.
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One last thing...
I was working with a new person who will be coming into our group yesterday. Actually he's a new old person. Probably will retire in a few years. Really nice guy, quiet, calm, thoughtful, smart. We were at a discussion/meeting about something he will be working on in his new job with us. He didn't know much about it.
But he said with a big smile on his face, "I learned something today."
That's great. What a good attitude. We can always learn something. Very hope filled.
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Hope you have some sun, rain if you need it, learning and laughter this week and always.
I hear some rain on my roof right now...we need it.
