Handing Out Guns to Get Votes…. something wrong here!

“I’m hoping the AG isn’t just trying to pass this off without taking it seriously,” he said. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll take it down to the federal courthouse and see what the hell they’re going to do. We can’t have any lunatic handing out guns to get votes. I’m not anti-gun, but this is just crazy.”

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2014/06/17/3024511/clint-didier-campaign-having-gun.html#storylink=cpy

Read Full Post »

Unintentional FAME: I saw myself on Google!

In the current upheaval about privacy following the revelation that Verizon and Google and a lot of other media

giants are spying on American citizens at the behest of the NSA, I have wondered what a benign person like me might have “out there” that I was unaware of.

Just for fun, this morning I Googled my name and my art business name and searched “images”.  I was surprised to see three whole rows of my stuff!  The fourth and fifty item in the bottom row of his image are NOT mine…but all the rest is!   My goodness!   I am glad I am not a purveyor of seamy art!

There are “about me” photos and some outtakes from my 3 Americas! exhibit in NYC.  Early Farmer’s Market work, and some recent process documentation of a favorite painted wood bowl. Yes, my current logo!   Even my daughter’s birthday gift puzzle!  And the signature I sometimes put at the bottom of my blogs.

I wonder how many rants of mine have made the cut?  Likely I would not be so much on top of the pile.  There are several high profile people with my name who are really well known in their professions, and somehow Susan Komen comes up in a search for me.  Well, that’s ok.

I do get angry at you government people, in case you are reading this entry.  Very angry.  I think you are manipulating things much as the Mafia has been guilty of doing.  The power of money and might has eclipsed the honor and humility that marked our earlier American way of doing national business.  I am ashamed.  But I still think that freedom and democratic practices are better than the other choices (as if we had a choice…most of us don’t.)

So, if I am to shamed in the public square for my protests and letters to editors and other media people I know the names of, I hope you pick one of the nicer photos to publicize the shaming.

It’s not so far away from the way some nations capture those who speak against a hallowed leader and imprison them like rabid dogs.  Or shoot them.

We all have some traps in the path of our journeys.  I see, with sadness, the traps multiplying…booby traps, even, for the folks who love truth and transparency.

When did we become so corrupt?  It is not the “image” of the nation’s government that is the concern.  It’s the reality of what emerges when that image is scratched off,  like the gold circle on a give-away ticket advertising a prize of ten cents to a hundred dollars.   Not much there.  And the numbers are not the only thing that are temporarily hidden!

Old Swimmer

Read Full Post »

The Kids at the Corner and How They May Affect our Economy

PEPPERS IN A BOWL

At the foot of the mountain, just across from the post office, there is a white canopy.  From early morning until people go inside for the day there are two young adults who are peddling fruit and vegetables from that stand.   I got to know them at the local fair where they were testing the market.

FRESH PRODUCE  signs are on all the corners pointing to this single stand.  They told me the woman whose lawn they set up on was willing to have them there because it might draw in customers for her wood furniture which is also sitting on the property.

At the fair I learned that these folks are living with Mom… up from southern California because they lost their jobs.  The produce venture depends on bringing in food from across the mountains.  They pick wonderful stuff, and display it well.

I’ve been taking them my hand made wood bowls.  The fruit looks terrific in them, and they have already sold a couple.  I’ll keep taking them bowls and splitting the proceeds with them.   They sell out nearly every day, they say.  This is entrepreneurial problem solving.  It took a humble attitude and a lot of energy to do this.   They are working their way into solvency and with a cheerful attitude.  I love this couple.  He has got a piercing or two on his face, and she looks young.  But they both are gracious, polite, well-spoken, and very glad for a chance to “make it”.

My mind goes back to a man who worked in the same corner of a building where I was an advertising manager for a business, years ago.  I was young (like the young girl at the fruit stand), and he was a loving Dad to seven children.  He told me how his father got the family through the Great Depression.  Apples.  Apples on a push cart in New York City!   My co-worker was proud of his Dad’s strength of character and his hard work to feed a family in New York during those awful years of bread lines and homelessness.  The Apple Man’s family was not homeless.  They had food.  And pride.

I am hoping I can watch a wonderful thing happen with these two young people from California.  If I can be a part of it, it will do me a lot of good.  Not for the sold bowls (it’s not all that munificent to wholesale bits and pieces.)  But for the richness of seeing strong, decent people hitting the hard times by staring it down with smiles on their faces..standing for customers at their little 10 x 10 booth.

Old Swimmer

Read Full Post »

Sarah Palin! Use the shears!

I should talk!  My own hair is a mess usually, and I am no beauty contest winner in my past either. 

But am I the only one who wants to brush Sarah Palin’s hair out of her eyes?  I can’t see those eyes!  Beautiful gorgeous eyes behind oh so fascinating glasses, and with long bangs hanging over the whole scene like shreds of drapery held over a stage show.

I want to do what I used to do to my children when they would present their carefree selves to me with dirty faces and hair hanging over their faces.  Lick my finger and rub the dirt off and then smooth the hair back so I could see the faces carefully and close up.

Any political candidate who want me to seriously consider them should be able to look me in the eye. 

I want to like this woman!  She has a lot of authenticity in that she is asking real life questions about things we forgot to wonder about.  She has energy.  She is, perhaps, trying to hide the glamour behind glasses, and thinks the dangling hair looks disingenuous/ or maybe modest?   (I won’t get started about the 3-inch heels that she handles so expertly so that her calves look sexy. They make my feet hurt.  That’s good for a shrug but not important enough for an article. )

I’m old enough to be her grandmother, and so are a LOT of potential voters out there.  We remember teaching our children and their children to stand up straight (Sara gets A’s), listen politely (Sara gets A’s), and look people in the eye.  (Umm. Sara can’t.) 

If we had a candidate with a patch over the eye it would be easier.  We wouldn’t trust him either immediately,  but at least we could see ONE of his eyes– and see if he is looking right at us,  or elsewhere (like perhaps at the money, or the power, or a vested interest.)

Sarah, I like that you are a girl.  I like that you are smart, tough girl.  But I want you to act like a plain earnest person who thinks it’s more important to look folks in the eye than to maintain your mystery.

You look fine!  Believe it enough to get that hair out of your eyes!  It sticks behind your glasses!  I can’t hear you when I am trying to brush it away! Or maybe you could trade it in for an eye patch!

old swimmer

PS:  I notice, this last week of January 2010, that Sarah has either allowed FOX NEWS to use the shears,  or she has had her hairdresser do so.  Thank you, Sarah!  I am not sure about what FOX is doing to its other talking heads,  but even though they used a lot of hairspray, they did get those bangs out of your eyes.  Now I’ll listen to what you say….

Read Full Post »