Obama Mama

I've been too busy to blog---thankfully, I guess. Here on the eve of the RNC's convention and we are facing another "perfect storm." Perhaps they'll figure out how to make it work to their advantage this time, ("Nice job, Brownie") or the public will finally GET IT! The "more for me" party will do anything to remain in power. They've successfully (depending upon your point of view) privatized education, water, health care, security, etc...but geez, there's just so much more to do! Bring back the cold war, invade Iran, put more oil platforms in the gulf... nominate more x-beauty queens? I need a nap!

Nature Conservancy

Lake Huron shoreline in the U.P. is still relatively unspoiled. A weekend trip to hunt mushrooms clears the head.

You know you're living in Ann Arbor when...

Several Saturday nights ago, we went to a local book store to see Ira Glass from This American Life. If you don't know of Ira Glass and his wonderful NPR radio show, you are missing some of the most wonderful moments of listening pleasure ever. If you do know of him, but have never met him, he is as intelligent, funny, charming and self-effacing as you might imagine. I've never seen anyone delight so much in the various and sundry ways we Americans choose to live our lives. Yet, his humor is never cynical or cruel. He loves us! In all our crazy, silly, ironic and hypocritical glory--he sees who we want to be.

Anyway, he was at the bookstore promoting the Discovery Channel version of TAL and said a few words before opening it up to questions. He said, "I'm here for you, so please just ask me anything!" After answering a wild ride of questions, he met each one of us and signed everything and even let people take pictures. He never lost patience or was bored with any of us. I never saw anyone so endlessly curious about other people. It gave me hope.

You know you are living in Ann Arbor when over 200 people show up at a book store on a very cold winter Saturday night!

Let's Have a Little Scientific Integrity

This week a group of concerned scientists issued a statement about government interference and political pressure brought to bear on scientific knowledge and research. It reminded me of a personal experience with just such an issue over 30 years ago.

We were living in a rural area and decided to raise "organic chickens"--chickens that were raised without hormones on only organic feed (grown without the help of Monsanto). To that end, we had to locate the grain and the proper additive so we could "make" our own special blend of feed. This required research, so we started where every good farmer would--at the local cooperative extension service.

Well, you would have thought we had decided to build a bomb, blow ourselves up and take our neighbors with us. These local representatives of the big university were totally in the pockets of BIG CHEMICAL. Any knowledge they had was thoroughly tainted. Any semblance of scientific objectivity about "organic chicken" was replaced with hysteria, fear and suspicion. We were looked upon as nut cases at best and subversives at worst.

Forgive me if I feel somewhat vindicated these days. . . .

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/restoring/scientificfreedom.html

The Huron River

One of the really wonderful things about living in Ann Arbor is the Huron River and how much of its banks are totally accesible and not lined with multi-million dollar condos. How did they resist the developer's sweet talk? Good government, that's how. And I'm not afraid to say it. Those who hate government by policy--do so because it seeks to block them from exercising what they call "freedoms." Yeah...freedom to be a greedy slimeball. Freedom to destroy neighborhoods, suck the life out of small towns, devastate the environment. Somehow, the good people of Ann Arbor make their government work for them. We have a great transportation system, more parks were square mile than most small cities, recycling, and public services that seem to work most of the time. Progressives and liberals run this place and it stands as a model to how good government can work when the community's needs are put ahead of ideology.

Voting in the Michigan Primary

All of a sudden, conservatives have decided that the federal government really can have an effect on local economies like Michigan. They are promising billions to help us out now. It's too little too late. This exodus began a long time ago...global capitalism sucks dollars from one pocket to another. You don't have to have a Nobel prize in Economics to figure out who the winners are. Follow the jobs! Follow the money!

So how do I go about voting? Do I vote for the person whose viewpoints most reflect mine (Dennis), whose rhetoric is most inspiring (Barack) or the candidate with the most experience (Hillary)? Or do I cross over and vote for Mitt (what a Ken doll) or McCain (he's like the uncle you love but argue with all the time). Do I vote for Ron Paul? Is he even on our primary ballot? I've never been so undecided.

"comprehensive propensities"

In 1969, R. Buckminster Fuller opened his now classic Operating Manuel for Spaceship Earth with these prophetic words: "I am enthusiastic over humanity's extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuities. If you are in shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday's fortuitous contriving as constituting the only means for solving a given problem."

I can't help but reflect on Fuller's thoughts when I see the offerings at the Detroit Auto Show which opens this week. They sure have made a lot of pretty nice piano tops.

Things are Worse Than You Think!

Even Mike Huckabee thinks the Michigan economy stinks! When this poor guy called home, he probably told the family he had a new career in "marketing."

So Gone for So Long

I've been too busy and preoccupied with making my new nest to keep up with blogging. But the other day, an incident occurred that I just have to share. It's so Ann Arbor! After living in the big city, we are noticing how oddly civilized this little burg is. We got about a foot of snow, and it was so beautiful, we just had to venture out in it. Of course, that meant the layers of polar tech, the rain suit, heavy boots and gloves. I took my digital camera, but kept having to take off my gloves because I couldn't operate the shutter. I stuck my right glove in my left pocket, so I could work the camera.

We had trudged about 2 miles when I discovered that my glove was gone. My pocket was empty. We were too cold to retrace our steps, so we just went back to the loft to warm up.

The next day, we walked the exact same route, and there it was (just as my husband had predicted). Some citizen had hung my glove on the railing just above this sidewalk cafe that I had photographed.