This is my Washington....

DC is a wonderful city, politicians aside, and the following is one good example of why I love the place:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/DC-Elementary-Glee-Club-Sings-for-First-Lady-84998377.html

Also, what would we do without Michelle Obama??

I write emails....

I sent this one to MO, my wonderful former coworker from Iowa, who asked about the reference to flying to Orlando in the previous post:

you would have loved Orlando, even though it wasn't much warmer than DC!!! 37F in the a.m., 48-50F in afternoon, then back to the 30s...with a 10-15 mph wind!! still....there was NO SNOW. and there were all those wonderful birds!! and there's a free bus you can take to all the various other Disney resorts around, even though you have to pay PLENTY to get into the resorts once you're there--like $84 a pop to get into Animal Kingdom. still, we did find out on the last day that there is a separate line/entrance for the RESTAURANTS only at each of those places. and the people were very friendly. best of all, there were lots of people walking around in SHORTS and tshirts even in the cold wind. and guess where THEY were from (according to their t-shirts, that is)....MINNESOTA, NORTH DAKOTA, and NEBRASKA. hahaha.

the only thing i didn't like very much about Orlando was that i seemed to be the only SINGLE person there. Penny, Ian's (oldest grandson's) mother-in-law, was at a conference from early morning until like 5 pm every day. so every time i showed up for breakfast or lunch, i was by myself, surrounded by families...a bit of a downer. still, she was kind enough to suggest that i fly down to take a break at the same time.

everyone says Las Vegas is "Disneyland for adults"...i say, "Disneyland is Las Vegas for kids"!! they are really VERY MUCH ALIKE, right down to the design! it is totally bizarre that this past autumn/winter has seen me visit (a) Las Vegas, and (b) Disneyland!! so of course i know everything about them...NOT.

i did like Las Vegas, though, believe it or not. i loved being able to walk for hours and not have to worry about traffic! and i especially loved the nighttime tour of the bright lights. and the lighted fountains...and all the other interesting stuff the tour guide was telling us. i also was very surprised at all the KIDS in the casinos. Penny was a bit scandalized when i told her about that...said it was "inappropriate" for them to be there. but i told her that they weren't there sitting sadly by while mom and dad gambled away the farm--it's just that to get from point a to point b, you have to walk through at least one casino to get there, and that's what they were doing...going from one place to another with their parents. i thought they added a nice, humanizing effect. and i didn't see any of them whining to be allowed to play the slots (against the rules, anyway--have to be legally adult).

i rented a bike one afternoon and rode all over the resort, which was very big and flat as a pancake, so i enjoyed the bike ride a lot.

i am not much of a traveler for travel's sake. some people i know, especially retirees, can't wait to get on a plane and go far away. i like it well enough once i get there, but i don't like dragging my suitcase around in airports. everyone else has those tow-along things, and i hate 'em. i'm always tripping over them in the metro here (and in Penn station in NYC, too--almost fell down on the track one time cuz this woman cut in front of me with her damned suitcase)....i said that when i can't carry my own bag, i'm gonna quit. next time i travel, i'll have to do some serious planning and packing to avoid too much weight. maybe a backpack...and i'll roll up my garments like my Swedish friend showed me. she's been all over the world with just a backpack.

anyway....the rain is washing away a LOT of the snow today! what a pleasure! big, warm drops, and the piles of snow are just disappearing!

that's more entertaining than anything Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy can drum up!!

The flailing falsehoods of America's war criminals

Here's an excellent read from Solon's Glenn Greenwald for a Monday morning in February when there are still PILES of snow on the ground here and the right wing is working overtime to spread its lies.

The flailing falsehoods of America's war criminals

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P.S. On my way to Orlando last week, I changed flights on the way. At the airport, in a Border's bookstore, yet, I saw THIS ugly display:

(Pardon my surprise, but I associate Borders with my father's birthplace, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I have always presumed the best of anything that comes out of Ann Arbor.)

It made me realize just how precious our time is, and how necessary that we fight against the right wing's propaganda when the media not only won't help us but are also doing their doggonedest to spread the poison.

Faulkner's "Inspiration" (updated)

Turns out William Faulkner found an old slave owner's diary at some point in his life, and he used it for inspiration for his first stories...not to mention some of his novels about Yoknaphatawpha County. Some inspiration! He did win the Nobel Prize for literachoor, y'know. I should have such inspiration!

Actually, I do....I wrote kind of a memoir and I used it for my master's thesis at City College. Maybe I'll get in there and make a bunch of stories out of it. Yoknaphatawpha County, indeed. We had plenty of that kind of good old down-home b.s. out where I lived...western North Dakota and Minneapolis and Eastern Iowa. Enough to curl your hair....actually, in western ND, that would be "curl your HAIRS" plural.

Well, I'll get with it. This is what retirement is for, non?

[UPDATE...I've corrected the first line to show that the diary belonged to a wealthy plantation owner, NOT one of his slaves.]

Snoozeville Chronicles Vol 1, Iss #2

What a difference a week makes! A week ago, the snow was falling in little bitty flakes. The lil flakes didn't look like much, but they kept it up until Saturday night! On Sunday, nothing was moving--no Metro above ground, no Metro buses, not even enough sidewalk shoveled so we could walk. Monday was a bit of a spell in the storm, but ha...Monday night, the snow started again and fell that night and all day Tuesday until 10 pm. Same little flakes, but we got 12" in the first storm, and 10" in the last one. I had to pay $50 to get the driveway shoveled so I could get out of the house (and that doesn't count the $15 I forked over to the little neighbor kids who mostly played with the dog since they had only one shovel, and the snow was HEAVY....).

Anyway, today the sky is bright blue and sunny, and the streets in Mt. R have been cleaned miraculously. (well, two of them have...RI ave is dry pavement from side to side, and 37th St has had a good swipe taken out of the middle so people can drive.

One problem is that the snowshovel has disappeared from INSIDE the house. Probably the landlady has hauled it away to work on her place in DC. I am not really gung ho on shoveling, but I do enjoy a bit of it....and after 23" of snow, there are still lots of places that could be cleared better. like the path to the trash cans, the back patio, etc. I like getting out into the cold, clean air and hearing the hungry ROBINS singing from the trees around me. The neighbor lady, whose name is Robin, feeds them bread chunks, and they flock to her little front yard tree, singing their heads off.

I am hoping I can get a photo, but so far, not.....

More Cabin Fever....the view from inside

OK....first photo: the neighbor's yard from inside our family room. Second photo: The back patio YESTERDAY....it's got lots more snow now, but it looks much the same. Third photo: Front yard showing tree branch down across the front sidewalk.

Back to work now.....

Songs for Cabin Fever....

George of Whitelees sent me a little songbook several years ago. It's that auld Scots children's bus-riding ditty, "Oh ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus" sung to the tune of "She'll be comin round the mountain when she comes." (My guess is that "She'll be comin round the mountain" originally was sung to the tune of "Oh ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus.")  Whatever, it's a jolly old song, and it makes a good earworm for snowbound grannies.....

Oh ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus, (shove shove)
Oh ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus,
Ye cannae shove yer Granny
For she's yer Mammy's Mammy,
Ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus.

Ye can shove yer ither Granny aff the bus.
Ye can shove yer ither Granny aff the bus.
Ye can shove yer ither Granny
For she's yer Faither's Mammy
Ye can shove yer ither Granny aff the bus.

Ye can shove yer Uncle Wullie aff the bus.
Ye can shove yer Uncle Wullie aff the bus.
Uncle Wullie's like yer Faither
A harum-scarum blether,
Ye can shove yer Uncle Wullie aff the bus.

Ye can shove yer Auntie Maggie aff the bus.
Ye can shove Auntie Maggie aff the bus.
Auntie Meg's yer Faither's sister,
She's naethin' but a twister,
Ye can shove yer Auntie Maggie aff the bus.

But ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus.
O ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus.
O ye cannae shove yer Granny,
For she's yer Mammy's Mammy,
O ye cannae shove yer Granny aff the bus.

Chorus
Singing I will if you will, so will I
Singing I will if you will, so will I
Singing I will if you will
I will if you will
I will if you will, so will I

Cabin Fever, DC style

this is from the inimitable Prince of Petworth.  I'm so proud of 'em...and him.....I live in best place in the world....

handknit socks!!!

Some of the nicest items in my wardrobe were hand-knitted by my friend Ilze, who in her long career as college professor and translator, knits for a hobby.  I've always longed to learn how to knit socks, especially, but my fingers do not take directions very well.  Today, however, I got another edition of the St. Ben's online newsletter.  I went to St. Ben's for one year after leaving the convent, and they still consider me an alumna.  In today's online version, there is an interesting and inspiring article about Padhma Creation, a knitwear company set up for poor, unemployed women in Nepal by Kesang Yudron,  an '08 graduate of St. Ben's:



I have been looking at the online store and DROOLING over the socks!!

sign on the fridge.....(thanks, m'reen!!)

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE PETS, THIS IS A TRUE STORY. FOR THOSE THAT DON'T, IT IS A TRUE STORY.

 
The following was found posted very low on a refrigerator door.

Dear Dogs and Cats: The dishes with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn't help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort, however. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years - canine/feline attendance is not required.

The proper order for kissing is: Kiss me first, then go smell the other dog or cat's butt. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door:


TO ALL NON-PET OWNERS WHO VISIT AND LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PETS:

(1) They live here. You don't.
(2) If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That's why they call it 'fur'-niture.
(3) I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
(4) To you, they are animals. To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours and don't speak clearly.

Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they:
(1) eat less,
(2) don't ask for money all the time,
(3) are easier to train,
(4) normally come when called,
(5) never ask to drive the car,
(6) don't smoke or drink,
(7) don't want to wear your clothes,
(8) don't have to buy the latest fashions,
(9) don't need a gazillion dollars for college and
(10) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children ...

"where are the snows of yesteryear??"

when was the superbowl? yesterday? i was snowbound at cathy's, and we listened to classical music while she baked cookies (yes, SHE did all the baking--i worked the crossword puzzle in NY Magazine--there was no sunday paper anywhere). i took some photos of the courtyard during the middle of the day....before it got worse and also before it got shoveled.

there is no bus service yet at all for prince george's county. it breaks my heart to see people walking or riding their bicycles to work in DC from out here. one young man yesterday said nothing was plowed except for RI ave, and that not very well. every time the firetrucks or the ambulance went by, he had to dive into the snowbank to get out of the way.

on the positive side: i met two neighbors today: robin and her boy, terrel. i should have asked her what on earth she fed the kid...he's HUGE--and no longer a boy but a very sweet young man. he will help us with the downed tree branch tomorrow.

and two little girls from down the block, approximately 6 and 10, came and asked to shovel the driveway for $10. nobody but nobody could shovel all of that for any price, but i told them to get started. they both shoveled for a bit, then the youngest one helped by playing with cathy's dog. after about half an hour, i went out, paid them off, told them to go rest, and gave them a bag of homemade cookies. sweet little kids.

the federal gummint will be closed TOMORROW, too!! wow. it's really bad. i should go outside in the dark and shovel a path to the garbage cans before there's another foot of snow to deal with. but the snow won't start till tmw morning around 9, they say, so there'll be time after sunup....

Eye Opener of the Week

Prairie Weather has a most informative post today.  I was surprised for about 3 seconds:

Nice friends you've got there, baggers!

So the handsome Scott Brown was buzzing around in his truck, picking up large donations from...
Guess who!

In a six-day span just before the US Senate election, Republican Scott Brown collected nearly $450,000 from donors who work at financial companies, a sign the industry is prepared to spend heavily in the upcoming midterm elections to beat back new controls and taxes President Obama wants to impose.

The donations, from hundreds of financial executives, far exceeded what Brown received from doctors and others in the health care industry in the final days of the campaign. While Brown saw donations from all quarters explode in mid-January, as polls showed him closing fast on opponent Martha Coakley, the donations from financial workers coincided with several key developments that would affect their companies. ...
...Martin Gruss, owner of a West Palm Beach, Fla., investment firm, said he gave $2,400 to Brown because he vehemently disagrees with the policies being pursued by Obama and his economic aides. ...Boston Globe

Big banksters reach out to the Tea Party. Do those earnest populists know who their new friends are?

Nearly 80 percent of the money Brown got from financial workers came from outside of Massachusetts, in places with a concentration of financial firms, such as New York City, Greenwich, Conn., Chicago, and San Francisco. In addition to financial giants such as Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, the donors included executives from hedge funds and private equity firms.

[XE sez: Seems to me that in the good old days, it was said that politicians used to PAY PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR THEM. Now they just get corporations to fork over $$$ to OTHER corporations (TV, radio, newspapers), and somehow people magically vote for them. I say we should bring back the good old days. If Goldman Sachs wants me to vote for some politico, they can send me a nice fat check. Let's skip the middleperson.....]

Take a Look.....

Here's a cure for boredom: the famous Coda Brothers "singing" "Every rose has a thorn" in ASL.....



Some of you will get it, but it's so frickin funny even if you just watch it.....

The Snoozeville Chronicles, Volume 1, #1

One of the best things about living in a small town is the NEWSPAPER--or, in the case of my town, the website, especially the "Local Drama" section. (They don't call it this.  Officially, it's the "police report.") I found this amazing local drama among last month's reports, same day.

Item 1: Local woman  is arrested for driving without headlights long after sundown. Officers notice a strong scent of alcohol, so they ask her to take the breathalizer test, and she fails.  They then discover she has a long string of DUI arrests and a suspended drivers license. They take her car away from her ("for safekeeping") and send her home, apparently on foot.

Item 2: Local woman calls the police to come remove her teenager from the house. Officers explain that they can't just DO that, there is a procedure to follow, involving more phone calls, etc.  Woman says, ok...no problem, she doesn't need any further help. Several hours later, officers are called back to the residence, which now lodges a disorderly person complaint--against the mother, who is standing outside of the residence YELLING and won't quit. Officers place her under arrest and take her to jail.

NOWIASKYOU, dept.: Which woman do YOU think should have spent the night in the slammer? Have you ever had a teenager?

Just in case you've forgotten....

 ...which, if you're in my age demographic, you probably have, here's my last year's post on Groundhog's Day!

This morning, I decided to see whether Groundhog Day is another one of those holidays, like Halloween or Christmas, with roots--not in modern day phenomena like the Punxatawny, Pa., TV station's weather forecast but further back--in ancient times.

I'm very happy to report that I hit PAYDIRT. Yes, this day does have ancient roots, going at least as far back to 542 A.D. But please click the link and read this fascinating article.

Among the scientific and historical nuggets I mined from "Weather Doctor's Almanac for 1998, Celebrating Groundhog Day," I learned that the beginning of February marks the start of Solar Spring! Hooray!

In my youth (long before Bill Murray was born), we never celebrated the groundhog's first venture from his burrow (yup, HIS burrow...the Weather Doctor says female groundhogs don't come out of hibernation for quite a while yet).

We observed February 2 as Candlemas Day--the day whose most salient liturgical point was the long line of sneezing, snuffling, bundled-up children waiting to kneel two at a time at the communion rail to get our throats blessed after morning Mass. A couple of the nuns would stand at the ends of the front pews to make sure our throats were free and clear--the layers of scarves unwrapped, the topmost coat, sweater, and shirt buttons undone--so Father Walsh or Father Branconniere could stick the "X" arrangement of two candles against our necks and recite the blessing. The blessing invoked St. Blaise, patron saint of sore throats. The idea was that this actually worked, and I apologize for not researching any scientific proof.

If the blessing didn't take, however, (often) our mothers would paint our throats with MERCUROCHROME!! Mercurochrome was a sure-fire cure, but omg...that was MERCURY they were swabbing on our tonsils! Last I tried, I couldn't even BUY mercurochrome any more at the local pill, nostrum, greeting card, and whatnot emporium known as CVS. The PTB (Powers That Be) have decided dabbing mercury on our cuts is too dangerous.

It's a wonder we survived. Of course, all weather is local, which means so are all weather prognostications. Despite all the nonsense about "six weeks left of winter," etc., Groundhog Day in North Dakota was only halfway through the danger zone of the ND winter. We still had to get through February AND March, when the worst blizzards came, plus April and May, too. I have a photo of my old yellow Chrysler almost completely buried in the May Day blizzard of 1967, but of course, I can't find it now in the gazillion photos unearthed during moving....

O model, boring Canada! Good on you!!

Can anyone succeed in this economy?  Canada has.  Paul Krugman's column in today's NYTimes makes an excellent case for following Canada's example. [emphasis mine]

Good and Boring

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 31, 2010

In times of crisis, good news is no news. Iceland’s meltdown made headlines; the remarkable stability of Canada’s banks, not so much.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Yet as the world’s attention shifts from financial rescue to financial reform, the quiet success stories deserve at least as much attention as the spectacular failures. We need to learn from those countries that evidently did it right. And leading that list is our neighbor to the north. Right now, Canada is a very important role model.

Yes, I know, Canada is supposed to be dull. The New Republic famously pronounced “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” (from a Times Op-Ed column in the ’80s) the world’s most boring headline. But I’ve always considered Canada fascinating, precisely because it’s similar to the United States in many but not all ways. The point is that when Canadian and U.S. experience diverge, it’s a very good bet that policy differences, rather than differences in culture or economic structure, are responsible for that divergence.
And anyway, when it comes to banking, boring is good.

First, some background. Over the past decade the United States and Canada faced the same global environment. Both were confronted with the same flood of cheap goods and cheap money from Asia. Economists in both countries cheerfully declared that the era of severe recessions was over.

But when things fell apart, the consequences were very different here and there. In the United States, mortgage defaults soared, some major financial institutions collapsed, and others survived only thanks to huge government bailouts. In Canada, none of that happened. What did the Canadians do differently?

It wasn’t interest rate policy. Many commentators have blamed the Federal Reserve for the financial crisis, claiming that the Fed created a disastrous bubble by keeping interest rates too low for too long. But Canadian interest rates have tracked U.S. rates quite closely, so it seems that low rates aren’t enough by themselves to produce a financial crisis.

Canada’s experience also seems to refute the view, forcefully pushed by Paul Volcker, the formidable former Fed chairman, that the roots of our crisis lay in the scale and scope of our financial institutions — in the existence of banks that were “too big to fail.” For in Canada essentially all the banks are too big to fail: just five banking groups dominate the financial scene.

On the other hand, Canada’s experience does seem to support the views of people like Elizabeth Warren, the head of the Congressional panel overseeing the bank bailout, who place much of the blame for the crisis on failure to protect consumers from deceptive lending. Canada has an independent Financial Consumer Agency, and it has sharply restricted subprime-type lending.

Above all, Canada’s experience seems to support those who say that the way to keep banking safe is to keep it boring — that is, to limit the extent to which banks can take on risk. The United States used to have a boring banking system, but Reagan-era deregulation made things dangerously interesting. Canada, by contrast, has maintained a happy tedium.
More specifically, Canada has been much stricter about limiting banks’ leverage, the extent to which they can rely on borrowed funds. It has also limited the process of securitization, in which banks package and resell claims on their loans outstanding — a process that was supposed to help banks reduce their risk by spreading it, but has turned out in practice to be a way for banks to make ever-bigger wagers with other people’s money.

There’s no question that in recent years these restrictions meant fewer opportunities for bankers to come up with clever ideas than would have been available if Canada had emulated America’s deregulatory zeal. But that, it turns out, was all to the good.
So what are the chances that the United States will learn from Canada’s success?

Actually, the financial reform bill that the House of Representatives passed in December would significantly Canadianize the U.S. system. It would create an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, it would establish limits on leverage, and it would limit securitization by requiring that lenders hold on to some of their loans.
But prospects for a comparable bill getting the 60 votes now needed to push anything through the Senate are doubtful. Republicans are clearly dead set against any significant financial reform — not a single Republican voted for the House bill — and some Democrats are ambivalent, too.

So there’s a good chance that we’ll do nothing, or nothing much, to prevent future banking crises. But it won’t be because we don’t know what to do: we’ve got a clear example of how to keep banking safe sitting right next door.

Wherever did we get the idea that Canada is boring just because it's well run and civilized???