Sunday Song (on Monday): Nourishing the Corny Side

Fall Back and Spring Forward

For years, my state of Indiana in the Eastern Time Zone stayed on the same time all year round.  Here in South Bend, during the summer, we were in the same zone as our Central Time Zone neighbors in Chicago, and in the winter, we were in the same zone as our Michigan Eastern time zone neighbors.  In 2006, we adopted daylight savings time, and it is still a subject of controversy.  So, Sunday, setting back my clock, I thought of it as a futile attempt to have more daylight when there is only so much daylight to have.  Whether you like to have the extra daylight in morning or evening seems more a matter of preference than anything else. Personally, I liked it when we didn’t change, but I was surprised that, when we switched to Daylight Savings Time, I also like summer nights where daylight lasted until 9:30 PM.

Allison Schrager has a different kind of proposal to what seems these days like sacred dogma:

This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal), Americans on Central and Rocky Mountain time do nothing, and Americans on Pacific time should set their clocks forward one hour. After that we won’t change our clocks again—no more daylight saving. This will result in just two time zones for the continental United States. The east and west coasts will only be one hour apart. Anyone who lives on one coast and does business with the other can imagine the uncountable benefits of living in a two-time-zone nation (excluding Alaska and Hawaii).

I think I could like it.

(Another blog idea from the Dish.  The history of time in Indiana here.)

Resisting Obamacare

I can’t resist this powerful, partisan, political commentary from Michael Tomasky:

Someone I know asked the other day: Has there ever been a law in the history of the country as aggressively resisted by the political opposition as this? Republicans didn’t do this with Social Security. Most of them voted for Social Security. They didn’t do it with Medicare. They, and the Southern racists who were then Democrats, didn’t do it with civil rights. There was a fair amount of on-the-ground opposition to that, but it wasn’t orchestrated at the national level like this was. And when the Voting Rights Act was passed the year after civil rights, Southern states in fact fell in line quickly. Check the black voter-registration figures from Southern states in 1964 versus 1966. It’s pretty amazing. 

No, to find obstinacy like this, you have to go back, yes, to the pre-Civil War era. The tariff of 1828, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which led to the civil war in “Bloody Kansas” and ultimately to the Civil War itself. Not  comforting thought. But it’s where we are.

(Thanks Sullydish) 

Sunday Song: Selfish Jean

I am rereading parts of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.  I was Googling for a review and came upon this song, “Selfish Jean,” which, under the circumstances, I love.  And the video is pretty entertaining too.

Another Well-Known Poet Writes Poems about Dogs

This morning while driving my car, I heard Billy Collins read the second poem on this video.  Collins has a nice voice;  the poem was a surprise.

What's your sign?

I’m not a horoscope person, not unless the horoscope is from Bob Brezsny’s Freewill Astrology.  And of course, at best, my Freewill Astrology horoscope could fit anyone with sort of a goofy wisdom.  So here’s my Libra horoscope for this week:  

What do you think you'd be like if you were among the one-percent-wealthiest people on Earth? Would you demand that your government raise your taxes so you could contribute more to our collective well-being? Would you live simply and cheaply so you'd have more money to donate to charities and other worthy causes? This Halloween season, I suggest you play around with fantasies like that -- maybe even masquerade as an incredibly rich philanthropist who doles out cash and gifts everywhere you go. At the very least, imagine what it would be like if you had everything you needed and felt so grateful you shared your abundance freely. 

I like it. 

Becoming a Parent

Alexis Madrigal has this reflection as he looks at his newborn son: 

 I feel, like a newborn, unsure when to eat, in-and-out of the dream world, and as likely to provide a coherent answer about fatherhood as my little boy is when we ask, "Why are you the most beautiful thing on Earth?" 

Start writing a novel tomorrow.

In 2011, I wrote a novel during the month of November.  Was it a finished product on November 30?  No.  Heck no.  Was it good?  Probably not.  But for the most part, it was an enjoyable experience, and I learned as much about writing as I’ve ever learned in a writing course.  I wish I had done this twenty years ago.

The incentive to do this was the National Novel Writing Month project found at NaNoWriMo.org.  They describe their project like this: 

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 p.m. on November 30. Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel. 

Futile Votes?

I write my house representative and she writes back pretty much ignoring what I’ve asked her about. Her way is not my way. I think of that letter as one of the many futile votes I’ve cast in my life.  But sometimes I imagine a conversation with my senator or house representative.  “How do you balance it?” I would ask.  “Your constituents want opposing things.  You run on a certain platform and then you get a ton of mail requesting the opposite.  What is your obligation?”

Jamelle Bouie writes today at The Daily Beast about the job of a legislature: 

"Evil" by Langston Hughes

Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you--
But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.

Hooked on Classics, Sunday Music

For my birthday last month, I received a CD mix from my daughter.  One of the selections was parts 1 and 2 from Hooked on Classics.  We listened to this at some point when she was growing up, and listening again was wordless emotional travel though time.  It's also kind of cool as are these accompanying pictures.  

12 Years a Slave

I've been reading and listening to discussion about this film.  Terry Gross interviewed Steve McQueen who explained why he wanted to make the movie:

[My wife] found this book called 12 Years a Slave, and I read this book, and I was totally stunned. It was like a bolt coming out of the sky; at the same time I was pretty upset with myself that I didn't know this book. ... Slowly but surely I realized that most people, in fact all the people I knew did not know this book. I live in Amsterdam where Anne Frank is a national hero. She's not just a national hero, she's a world hero, and for me this book read like Anne Frank's diary but written 97 years before — a firsthand account of slavery. I basically made it my passion to make this book into a film.

Gross interviews the historian David Blight who says,

[I]t's important for Americans to remember this history…because, to be quite blunt about it, most Americans want their history to be essentially progressive and triumphal, they want it to be a pleasing story. And if you go back to this story, it's not always going to please you, but it's a story you have to work through to find your way to something more redemptive.

Leonard Pitts says, “The film is not just brilliant. It’s necessary."

I don’t, for the most part watch violent movies, and from what I hear, this film will be painful to watch. Has anybody seen it?  What did you think?

This too shall pass.

Progress Happens in Unpredictable Ways

Here's the New Republic on the death penalty: 

Thirty-two states retain the death penalty in the U.S., but a new obstacle is making it increasingly difficult for them to carry it out. Pharmaceutical companies are taking a moral stand. The manufacturers of the drugs required by state departments of corrections for executions are saying they will not allow their products to be employed in this way. Manufacturers in the UK, US, Denmark, Israel, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and India have taken steps to prevent their drugs being used in executions.

This has had an astonishing effect. Shortages of lethal injection drugs and attendant litigation have resulted in moratoria—an official halting of executions—in Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, and Tennessee. 

I notice Texas and my state, Indiana, are not on this list of states halting executions.  The New Republic article describes some of the crazy strategies Texas uses to obtain drugs for execution. Still, from my view, this is progress from an unexpected source.

Etc., Etc., Etc

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza killed 20 students and 6 staff members at Sandy Hook elementary school.  Like many who learned of this tragedy, I was stunned and began reading a lot of articles about gun policy in the U. S.  I was reading so much, I decided to reactivate my blog and start posting some of the things I was learning.  I wrote eleven posts in December, seven about gun policy.  Looking back at January and February, I can see I had already mostly stopped writing about guns.  I guess there’s only so much one can say, but there is also a feeling that I’ve just given up.  I joined two groups, Moms Demand Action and Americans for Responsible Solutions and sent them donations.  I’ve sent letters to my representatives and read their lame replies about how they support the second amendment.

Everyday, guns kill people, often in suicides that don’t make the news or statistics.  Today, there was another shooting in a middle school, another reminder to grieve and send letters to my legislatures.

Late last December, I posted the question, how many people have been killed by guns since Newtown?  The answer was 160.  Today, the answer to that question is 9,675.  What's next?

We all need a pep talk...

This Sunday song/video is schmaltzy, cute, SWEET, and contains a hopeful message.  Please click.

From Maya Angelou

Seek Patience

Seek patience
and passion
in equal amounts.

Patience alone
will not build the temple.

Passion alone
will destroy its walls.

(Thanks to Chip)

Humbling Thoughts

I keeping thinking that I’ll write a post on why Ta-Nehisi Coates is my favorite writer, but so far, I can’t do him justice.  This recent passage below, however, is one of my reasons.  

It is not enough to know that you are the descendant of slaves--you should also understand how easily you could have been the slave-master. You don't read George Fitzhugh to assure yourself that there is evil in the world. Auschwitz is all around us. Auschwitz is alive and well and living in your noble heart. The existence of evil is the premise. The discussion must proceed from there.  

Years ago, when I was reading Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball, I realized that if I had been a southerner in 1830, I too might have thought slavery was natural and right.  It was, in a way, a life-changing thought.  Coates says history “is sometimes rage-inducing. But in the end it should be humbling.”  Yes.

What You Probably Already Know

Standard & Poor’s estimated that the shutdown of the government cost the economy around twenty-four billion dollars.

A Community Creation

Yesterday I finally joined the painters at the Michigan Street Bridge project (South Bend, IN).  It is touching how much community involvement has helped to make this project happen.  Close to a thousand people have helped paint. The design incorporates a number of South Bend landmarks into a semi-abstract design.  Designer Chris Stacowicz says, it's s"like visual hip-hop of the different spaces...”  

  

Stacowicz is pleased that this project is funded without any tax dollars.  The project is supported by the Community Foundation, Memorial Hospital, Outpost Sports, Home Depot, Behr Paint, YMCA, The Center for the Homeless, and others.  Companies like Slatile Roofing and Casteel Construction have provided scaffolding and other needed apparatus. In the picture above, we’re eating a lunch donated by Subway.  Other local restaurants donate food on other days.   

The project will be finished soon.  Read more about it here and here.  Picture by Kathy P.