7 Quick Things... or Takes... or the Tuesday Seven, whatev.

I'm taking this idea from These Little Moments who, in turn, took it from Not That You Asked (which I think is one of the best blog titles I've ever heard - it's so simple yet SO perfect for nearly any blog - because, really, who's asking?).

7 Quick Things (it's more things than takes today) is perfect for me today because my head is utterly swimming with issues and concerns and preoccupations.  (And now I'm really interested in unpacking the word "preoccupation" - it's a job before a job or something that prevents a job... and my preoccupations prevent my work for sure.  Hm.  But I digress.)

One

My sister's dog died yesterday.  He was a stray that my brother-in-law rescued.  When he found the dog abandoned in a warehouse, he was all dusty so they named him Dusty.  The vet told them he was pretty sure Dusty had been significantly abused as a puppy and his jaw had definitely been broken, so for years they cooked soft foods for him like scrambled eggs and boiled chicken.  With time, he grew stronger and grew to love his daily cookies, even asking for them by saying, "I want one."  I swear, the dog talked.  "I want one" sounded like, "Ah wahn wun."  Honest.  He was sweet and loving, letting all the family kids flop all over him and play with his toys. TJ won't remember him but definitely missed him this morning.  He walked around the house with Dusty's regular morning cooking with his hand on his head, which is his sign for, "Where is it (he)?" We'll miss you Dusty.

Two

I feel unqualified to understand what is going on in Iran.  Yes, there was an election.  Yes, the results seem questionable.  Yes, people are rioting and protesting and lives are being lost.  But I feel like the lies told to the American people over the past decade have made us incapable of addressing this intelligently.  Lumping someone into an Axis of Evil doesn't really lead one to understanding.  All I know is that what is going on there both worries and frightens me and I can only hope that the Obama administration is being seemingly quiet on the issue for a good reason.

Three

Candidate Obama stated he was a "fierce advocate" of gay rights.  Soooo... whattup with that?  Yesterday his administration defended the Defense of Marriage Act.  I do not understand what's going on here and really hope they step up on this very soon, like... oh, well, like immediately.  This action and their general inaction is unacceptable.

Four

I nearly devoured a book last night: Rockabye by Rebecca Woolf of Girls Gone Child.  After one evening of reading, I am on page 177 of 283. (I will be done tonight; I'd be done now if I wouldn't get in trouble for reading at work.)  There will be a longer post about her forthcoming, but long story short: she is my current girl-crush.  Like, if she was in BOP magazine, I'd have her picture all over my wall.  I think she is smart, gutsy, beautiful, stylish, funny, and truly inspirational - but really, more on her to follow.  (I am obsessed!) Have I mentioned that her kids' names are Archer and Fable?  Couldn't you just fall over?  I want to name my daughter Fable.

(BTW - check out her current blog post about gun control and the ensuing comments.  Good for her for standing up for gun control and the idea of keeping violent entertainment out of one's children's lives.  It's a shame that she had to close comments.  She even had to take down her Google ads because the posts caused them to switch to ads about guns and gun lessons.)

Five

I wish the ASPCA and State Farm weren't so adept at creating commercials that make me cry.  The woman who lost her home to a storm?  Crying.  The disheveled shih-tzu?  Crying.  They get me every time.

Six

Stuff about my job is going to change and I'm looking forward to it.  That's all I can say about that, though.  I'm not changing jobs, really - just the focus will be shifting and it's a positive move.  That's always a good thing.

Seven

I have a pear and a banana to eat as snacks today.  This makes me happy. Over and out.

Flame... Flames... on the sides of my face...

Any Clue fans?  Full disclosure: I can quote the whole movie... in Cantonese.  Okay, kidding... about the Cantonese, that is.  If we watch the movie together, I will try not to quote the whole thing as it plays, I promise.

As I sit here watching and reading lots of news clips, I can only wonder why it is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON I see criticizing Sonia Sotomayor is a white man? I can't even bring myself to calm down enough to adequately address the language being used in reference to her.  It is so extremely gender and race biased that it makes me sick. 

G. Gordon Liddy saying that he hopes she doesn't have to make decisions when she's menstruating and referring to the language of Spanish as speaking "illegal alien"???  What about Glen Beck calling her "Hispanic chick lady"?  Several intimating that she only got in to Princeton because of affirmative action.  (Oh, yes, and George W. Bush got into Yale based on his stellar academics.  She won the top prize when she graduated.  What did Bushie win?  Nada - we all lost.) 

And so what that all of the judges on Obama's short list were women?  Guess what - the bench needs one.  I'm sorry old white men, but your time is up.  Time to learn how to share. In reference to the recent Prop 8 decision, my brother said that decades from now scholars are going to look back on this time period - our time period - and view it the same way that we view segregation and the ban on interracial marriages.  I'm hopeful that his guess of "decades from now" is correct because I really fear that it's going to take longer than that.  Better yet, though, I hope it happens even sooner than that.  I'm not sure how long I can bear to live in a state of constant frustration at the intolerance of my fellow citizens.

Whatever It Takes

16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before (in addition to the above) and blog about them. (6/30)

Whatever It Takes
by Paul Tough

This is a book I've been wanting to read ever since I first heard about it last year.  It's about Geoffrey Canada, the head of Harlem Children's Zone and the creator of Baby College, a program in Harlem that teaches new and upcoming parents about contemporary parenting techniques.  The grand scope of Canada's goal is to solve the problem of poverty (how's that for ambitious?) and he determined that the best way to go about this is the "conveyor belt" scenario.  When low-income, inner city young adults are pregnant, he enrolls them in Baby College and they learn about things that middle-class families seem to find out about on their own: why reading to your baby/child is important, nutrition for pregnant women, nutrition for babies and children, the importance of an intact family unit (i.e. two parents), the importance of attending school, the argument against corporal punishment, etc. The conveyor belt continues throughout the child's life (in theory): they (and their parents) are enrolled in the Three Year Journey (like Baby College but with three-year-olds), and then preschool, and then kindergarten and up in the related charter school.  These children would then go on to college, graduate successfully, and bring their success and initiative back to Harlem and other cities.  The idea behind all of this is that low-income children do not have models of success in their lives.  More than half the men they know have been in jail, almost no one they know has gone to college, many haven't completed high school, and many are unemployed and underemployed.  Canada calls it "infection theory" - if he can "infect" the neighborhood with models of success, they will then spur more success, and so on, until Harlem is no longer an impoverished neighborhood. I think his work is brilliant and am happy that President Obama is a fan of this program and wants to expand it to twenty other urban areas (including Camden NJ).  I hope that the expansion can be approved and funded, which will be hard in these times, I recognize - but what better thing is there to invest in than the education of the future leaders and citizens of this country? I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone interested in childhood education.

Happy New Year!

Today is the day many Chinese people celebrate the New Year and one of my coworkers pointed out that it's the year of the Ox and sent along this piece about the Ox:

My purpose is to alleviate chaos
And perpetuate stability
To hold my ground against
Hardship, danger and adversity
Steadfast and above reproach

I am here to enforce honor and fair play
To set a moral code
By becoming one with nature,
Constantly working toward my goal
To bring about harmony and good fortune,

I AM THE OX

The year of the Ox is just what’s needed to clean up any mess and clutter left
by the Rat. The Ox is not as he appears and should not be underestimated or
considered slow or unaware.

The Ox is the quintessential hardworking, conventional cleaner-upper who will
put everything back in order and turn chaos back into reason.
There is no room for anyone looking for a free ride during an Ox year.
Hard work  pays and laziness does not.
It’s a plain-and-simple, cut-and-dried, yes-and-no type year.
It’s a year to get papers in order and your life back on track, and
to do whatever it takes to budget and plan for your financial future, lessening
the stress and securing your position. Tradition will be important and keeping
order and making sure that everyone plays by the rules a must.

You must gain respect through your actions
if you want to fare well during the year of the Ox.

~~~

I think it's wonderfully fitting (even if it is a bit like astrology and everything always seems to fit to some degree).  For me, it chimes with what I think was one of the more powerful moments in President Obama's speech yesterday:

"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."

I think the idea of being judged for what you build, not what you destroy, is incredibly useful.  I spend a lot of time around students and see them spending so much time tearing down other people - making fun of their pictures on Facebook, talking about what someone did, said, or wore, and so on.  It's such wasted energy and to do that kind of stuff around other people makes it even worse.  I feel like it poisons the air.  Sure, I have done (and do) my fair share of gossiping (although I try to keep it to a minimum now) but it never would dawn on me to do it around anyone other than the one person I was talking with.  Just think how the energy would be if we spent more time honoring and helping one another instead of degrading and criticizing.

Praise Song for the Day (the inaugural poem)

by Elizabeth Alexander

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

~~~

I like this poem a lot.  I only got to see her read some of it and wasn't moved by it at that moment, but poetry is interesting that way.  Sometimes the poet is not the best performer of his or her own work (and sometimes they are, like Robert Pinsky, a phenomenal reader of his own work).  But in taking the time to read it today (in a few moments of quiet), it definitely speaks loudly from the page (err, screen).  I love how it captures this moment in American life and how it echoes our founding American poets (Whitman, especially - and I even read one person compare the poem to some of William Carlos Williams' work).  I love the use of the word "sparkle" (a personal favorite, both as a word and as an item - I'm a sucker for things that sparkle); I love the idea of our ancestors on our tongues... we DO talk and act based on what we know of our family.  We carry that with us; it is so true.

I think Ms. Alexander did a wonderful job and I'm grateful to President Obama for having an inaugural poet present.  (I have this crazy idea about starting a campaign to have Mark Doty be the inaugural poet next time.  It certainly would have done some work making up for the Rick Warren invitation.)

President Obama

I'm going to take every chance I get to use the words "President Obama" for a while, partly because I can still barely believe it's true.

I knew the inauguration would be an emotional moment for many, and it was for me - but I think not for the same reasons many feel.  Yes, I recognize the great achievement in having a biracial president (especially in a country where looking black just means you're black, hence all the "first African-American president" stuff).  It was stirring to me when he stated that 60 years ago, his father wouldn't have been served in local restaurants.  He often avoids talking about race and there were DJs on the radio this morning discussing whether it would come up or not.  I'm glad he brought it up.  This nation needs to learn to talk about race in a responsible and respectful manner.  (Maybe some day we'll even be able to talk about gender in a responsible and respectful manner.  I maintain that there is more sexism than racism in this country.)

But the racial achievements of the day weren't what brought me to tears (as far as I can tell, although I am stirred by those thoughts).  This is the first time I have voted for a presidential candidate who then went on to win and be inaugurated.  I was first eligible to vote for president in 1996 but, sadly, did not vote (I was away at college and didn't want to bother with traveling home to vote or pursuing an absentee ballot; also, I was certain Clinton would win).  In 2000 and 2004 I most certainly did not vote for Bush.  On top of that, I have great feelings of dislike for the Bush administration and its actions over the last eight years.  I'm not a fan of airing all of those thoughts publicly because I feel the political discussions in this country have gotten too heated, but suffice it to say that I cried tears of joy when Bush boarded that helicopter and left D.C. today (I really did).  I really like President Obama and have great faith that he will be able to do many, many great things.  Like many, I fear that too much hope is being thrust upon him and that if he doesn't accomplish many, many great things, it'll be spun as great national disappointment.

I honestly believe, though, that he has the capacity to actually do all the things he wants to do.  The American people really need to get behind him and support his ideas and initiatives, though - which I'm hoping will happen.  People like change but they don't necessarily always like to change.  But we need to; we've been irresponsible and selfish for too long.  It is time to be more responsible and more self-less.

I believe he can redefine the presidency.  I believe he can make us a "greener" nation.  I believe he can increase human rights and inspire a decrease in discrimination.  I believe he can prove his detractors wrong.  I believe he can help us inspire other nations again, like we have in the past.  I believe he can bring two sides together to work for the common good.  I do not believe he is a superhero or the messiah, but I do believe, like the founding fathers, he is exactly who we need, when we need him... and I hope we have him in office for eight years.

And now I'm tearing up again.

Cupcake failure but anticipated joy

My friend Kate makes these really yummy self-filled cupcakes and I, being a very lucky friend, was given the recipe and have been making these cupcakes for many years now.  Kate has said that the cupcakes have failed her once in a while, but I hadn't had it happen before.  Granted, I don't make these as often as Kate, but I have made them often enough to know that the filling has not done it's whole "self-fill" job:

As you can see, these cupcakes have filling fail.  As Kate put it, these are "self-frost" cupcakes instead of self-fill.  Alas.  I'm sure they still taste good, though.

Why was I making cupcakes, by the way?  I was (well, am) scheduled to be in a meeting at 2pm tomorrow.  This means I could not take a day off tomorrow to stay home and watch the inauguration.  Today I received an email stating that the inauguration will be playing all day in the room next to where I sit and that we're all getting lunch ordered in for us.  Hurrah!  To illustrate my joy, I decided to bake and bring in self-filled self-frosted cupcakes.

I am overjoyed for the inauguration tomorrow.  Watching yesterday's concert on HBO, I felt like there was this spirit of uprising - like a population had revolted and overthrown the king.  It really IS the end of an era (or "error" like one of my favorite bumper stickers says).  Time will tell how this administration is judged, but if I had to guess... I'm guessing that many historians will check the box stating "worst ever".

It's relatively small potatoes compared to the wars in the Middle East, the current economic situation, the job losses, the credit crunch, the probably permanent damage done to the environment and wildlife, and so on - but I am SO very happy to have a president (as of tomorrow) who loves to read and values the role of literature and poetry in one's life.  Bush apparently read quite a lot (in competition with Karl Rove) but he didn't make it part of his job to encourage his (HIS!!) country to read.  Laura Bush's cause was going to be literacy, I believe, and I know she works very quietly and wouldn't have made a big show of anything she did, but I wish more was done.  Reading levels have gone up over the past five years or so, but most articles attribute that to kids who grew up reading Harry Potter (yay Harry Potter!) and then went on to be reading adults.  I hope that's true, but I hope even more is done in the coming years.

I signed up online for a library card today (so I spend less money on books but can still read current ones) but I did the application online and so I need to go to the library with a picture ID to pick up the actual card.  Then that'll be one more item done on the 101 in 1001, yay!  I have a whole box of books of my own to read, but sometimes I want to read something I don't own before I read something I do and our town library is really great about having new releases.

Library card: success

Cupcakes: (semi) failure

Inauguration viewing: expected success

Anticipated mood tomorrow: total joy - like how I would feel if it had just been cloudy for years and the sun has finally come out.  This land is your land, this land is my land... once again.

#16 & #18: Read books, make book page

As President-Elect Obama spoke in Baltimore today, I finished reading Dreams from My Father, the book he published in 1995 and re-released in 2004.  The book is about his personal journey to understand himself and I find it remarkably fitting that I finished the book (which ends before he starts Harvard) as he is on his way to Washington D.C. to take the oath of office for President. The book does a beautiful job of tracing his childhood and young adult life in three segments: his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, his post-college life in Chicago, and a trip he took to Kenya before he started Harvard.  The book ends with the very poignant image of Obama at the side-by-side graves of his father and grandfather, finally feeling as though he has some answer as to who he is.

I find it surprising that the book wasn't referred to more throughout the campaign.  A lot of arguments made against him could have been refuted by reading passages from the book (like how he doesn't understand rural life, yet he lived in a rural area in Indonesia as a child and clearly understood rural life from his African relatives).  Obama's never hid any details of his life, so it was always amusing to see stories that tried to reveal secret information about him.

I am also struck (as always) by what a wonderful writer and speaker he is.  Of course I expect that he had an editor, but he is known for being a great writer and I do not fear that most of the voice in the book is his.  I'm very excited to be heading into four (eight??) years of hearing this voice and having a pensive president, a man who enjoys thinking and pondering ideas.

As for the book, the most interesting part is the section about his childhood.  He clearly struggled with his identity and was almost always viewed as a black child growing up.  In this country, you are black if you look black.  Yes, he is biracial (and I do appreciate when that term is used because it is the most accurate) but I can't believe those who feel it's "unfair" to refer to him as the first African-American president since he's only "half black".  He was treated as black his whole life, has been called the n-word, grew up in black culture (but also white culture due to his family).  I think this nation is better off for finally having a president who understands the struggle many of our citizens in a way that no other president has been able to.  The part about his time as a community organizer is a bit slow (I'll admit that I skimmed along a bit)  but I see how it is key to understanding him and his motivations as well as his skills.

It's going to be an exciting bunch of years.  Obama and Biden are law professors and Jill Jacobs Biden is an English professor so there are three professors in the first and second families.  I think this is great and am very excited by it.

So this book is the first of the 30 I will read outside the ones specifically on the list.  I also created a "books" page on this site to keep a list of the books I read.  Yay, accomplishment.  I couldn't think of a catchy title for that page.  Perhaps something will dawn on me sometime in the future and I'll adjust it.  For now it's just "books".  Clear enough.

Now on to the next book!

I can't help but pull this apart and write at length today.

I don't plan ahead what I'm going to write here every day.  Usually I just wait for something to inspire me.  Sometimes I have one idea in mind (like yesterday I was going to write more about how people talk about their jobs too much) but then something happens or appears that demands my attention (yesterday's fat woman on stripper pole video). Today's inspiration?  This MSNBC article, "Disconnected from Obama's America", about how the rural South is still wary of the impending Obama presidency.  Rather than offer a cohesive five paragraph essay with cogent thesis statement, I am going to just respond to the snippets I find impossible to ignore or gloss over (snippets are in italics). In short, the article talks mainly about how some people in the South don't trust Obama and don't feel he can relate to their lives.

Loewer wonders about his place in Obama's America. "I'm worried that he's not gonna understand the rural way of life," he says.

If only it hadn't been perceived as too risky to talk too much about his childhood in Indonesia or his pre-Harvard visit to Kenya.  Obama was a child who saw animals being killed for his dinner and who saw produce move from dirt to plate.  He understands the rural way of life probably more than any president we've had since plantation owners (and even then, he probably understands it in a much more "everyman" kind of way).  I hate this misperception of him - that he's all city.  And, even if he was, he's smart.  You don't need to live something to know it (although it helps).  But that's besides the point for now because he did live it; I wish more people knew that.

"That comment he made about guns and religion, it's frightening, you have to admit," says the secretary at his accountant's office.  Loewer agrees. "I don't believe in going around with a gun strapped to your hip, Wild West-style," he says. "But you ought to be able to protect yourself."

And then later in the article:  Guns define Loewer's life. He grew up walking the woods with a rifle. He worked as a guide during duck season for extra income. His deep freezer is full of game that he grills with Cajun seasoning or portobello mushrooms for family dinners. There are few better feelings than the one he gets taking his 14-year-old son hunting and teaching him about white-tailed deer. "We depend on our guns in the South," he says. One of his favorite bumper stickers reads, "If you want more gun control, use two hands."

Here we have a common lack of interpretation and understanding.  Protecting yourself and clinging to your guns and religion are two different concepts.  I happen to agree with Obama about the clinging part; I wish he hadn't had to retract it.  I believe his intended meaning was that people cling to these items/ideas because they symbolize the world they live in as well as the world they oppose.  They cling to them as a means of self-identification, like certain people wear fashion labels. Robert Serio, chairman of the local Democratic Party for 30 years, says Obama was viewed as too liberal in Monroe County. "We don't look at national Democrats as being family-oriented," says Serio, a lawyer. "The multicultural thing would be something we are opposed to. The homosexual question would have an impact." Democrats aren't family oriented?  Ever hear of FMLA?  Or do you believe your women-folk shouldn't be at work in the first place and therefore don't need family leave?  And only wussy men would want leave for a newborn?  And what is this "multicultural thing" you are opposed to?  Guess what - it's going to be like trying to fight a tsunami because multicultural is how the world is going.  And "the homosexual question"?  What question?  I hate euphemisms.  Just say what you mean - you don't like African-Americans and you don't like gay people.  If it's so wrong to say that outright, maybe that tells you something.

Son Casey proudly shows off three sets of antlers mounted on his bedroom wall. On his dresser: a drill, hunting gloves and an off-brand MP3 player that holds a meager 320 songs but suits him just fine.  "IPods are too complicated," Casey says.

Clearly this is open to a comment about Southern intelligence, but that's the cheap and easy shot.  What this is actually indicative of is a lack of effort and education.  iPods are not difficult to master.  I have one and while I can't do anything fancy with it, I figured out how to get music and podcasts on it, which is all I really need.  Saying an iPod is too complicated indicates either 1 - a total lack of drive to try and master something that takes more than two minutes or 2 - a response crafted to shade the fact that they're maybe too expensive (a lot of the article talks about the family's relatively low income).  Either way, there is a sadness.

Batchelor offers his philosophy on why Obama lost Monroe County. He says people feared that he would expand social welfare programs. "You earn your wealth," Batchelor says. "We've had enough handouts from the government. We have second- and third-generation blacks who are living in the projects; they'll never get out of it. They are taught to live in it."

This demonstrates the widespread lack of understanding people have about poverty and how hard it is to escape the cycle.  I also take issue with his use of the word "it".  I believe "it=poverty" in the quotation, but it's not entirely clear.  If that is the case, though, apparently poverty is a bad word, something you don't directly refer to (like people who whisper, "Oh, she's got cancer").  Standard high school history and sociology classes (sociology should be required in h.s.) should be teaching Americans about the poverty structure in this country - how it came to be, how it continues, how hard the cycle is to break, what current theories are on breaking the cycle, why welfare doesn't equal socialism, why socialism isn't terrible, and so on - things that normal, everyday, voting Americans should have to know and understand (or at least vaguely grasp).

Part of my job includes helping students with their essays/papers.  The one I was just working on opened with this sentence: Michael Bloomberg is one of the most influential business, political, and philanthropy in World Street. Education is not a rural or urban issue.  It's a global issue and I'm glad we have a global, multicultural president-elect.  With better education, perhaps we can decrease these misunderstandings.  People question the necessity of English and literature courses for people pursuing non-humanities degrees.  What they don't seem to realize is that teaching the exegesis of texts helps people better interpret the world, including other people's words and actions.  It also teaches people to look at things deeply and critically.  Perhaps the era of "soundbite campaigning" would cease if people were no longer satisfied by such small bits of information.  Perhaps we would have debates that no longer kowtowed to the lowest common denominator, even though the lowest common denominator is probably not watching.  Maybe we wouldn't have plumbers reporting in Iraq and declaring that Obama means "the death of Israel".  Or maybe people with journalistic aspirations would have the means to chase their goals from the get-go and wouldn't first have a career as a plumber and could have the proper education that a reporter should have (although Ann Coulter was educated at Cornell, so maybe that idea doesn't fly).  Regardless, I think "fixing" our education system is the key to "fixing" the nation and getting us on a stronger path for the future.