Because We Have Freedom

The First Amendment Rocks, you know that? Despite my husband's quote at the bottom of this page, "You know, the problem with the internet is it gives everyone a voice.", I think he truly appreciates our ability to say whatever the hell we want in this country--even those from the intolerant right or the intolerant religious zealots. Yes, they get to talk too, and what they say is really the target of my husband's contempt.

Let your freak flag fly, I say.

No, I haven't heard about Jesus, how about you tell me all about him. Obama wasn't born in the U.S.? Tell me about it. Women shouldn't earn as much as a man does for the same job? Hey, let's talk! The Rapture is coming so pollution and consumption and waste doesn't matter? Let's go buy something!!

Tell me all about it.

Because we do have freedom here, not only do we get to say what we want, it's good to keep using our freedoms so they don't get chipped away. (psst. *said in hushed, secretive tones*Bush domestic spying--hey Obama, when you gonna stop that?) I get to say stuff too to counter what they are saying!

Let's take a peek at the First Amenement so we all know what we have the right to do:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


You can believe, or not believe, anything you want! The government has no say in that. None. Neither to establish (through tax dollars or text in public places), nor to prohibit. If you want to be a Wiccan, you can be. Totally American!! Yes, Fundamentalist Christians, THAT is what America is about. Tolerate that.

Now, because of the First Amendment, you can tell me that I'm going straight to Hell and that I need to get myself right with God!! You can say it, but I don't have to believe it and the government doesn't have to teach it--in fact mustn't teach it. That's just for you. That's your own individual freedom that you have a right to, that can't abridge my own individual freedom that I have a right to. Even Steven.

I can write all of this here, because there is the freedom of the written word, and speech.

Tonight, when my family goes to watch fireworks, we will meet with another family and we get to do that because of the First Amendment. You can go where you want. You can see who you want. We take that so for granted here.

I spoke with a Romanian man once who explained how they would meet people in the city where he was from. No one was allowed to stand near a statue of Nicolae Ceausescu, but it was an obvious place to meet people. So, people would slowly walk in a large circle around it, waiting until their friends would arrive. Can you imagine? You can't just stand there??

Other countries insist on citizens carrying papers identifying them. Crazy, right? It's like old Communist Romania or Russia or Germany during WWII. Who would want that kind of intrusion on personal freedom here in the U.S.? It is soooo UnAmerican, isn't it? Look at the First Amendment. That's American, not anything that seeks to alter that.

I could tell Bush how pissed off I was at his policies and law breaking--torture really is against international law--and, I can tell Obama to get it together and stop all of Bush's policies. Get us out of Iraq. Get us out of Afghanistan. Quit cozying up to the same corporate leaders who made a mess of our economy and environment and fight for the people! That's why we elected you. I can say all of that because I have a right to tell the government whatever I think. I have the right to sue the government when wronged by them. That is American too.

All of these rights are the basis of our American culture. The expression of these rights is what makes this country so fun. You can be who you want and how you want and where you want. It is about freedom here.

As this is the Fourth of July weekend, I think some patriotic music is in order. My friend L. and I were talking last night and we both agreed we like Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner. It is his free expression of the song, but also his ability to weave in the sounds of bombs and screams that is so compelling. Think of how the Viet Nam War was raging on then and hear the song. Now remember that WE ARE AT WAR EVEN NOW!! STILL!!

We kinda forget that with the daily life thing happening, don't we? Unless you have friends or loved ones in the service, it's not a topic that comes up in daily life. If you read or listen to alternative media sources, it comes up. That's not what most of the mainstream press is covering. But, by God I know that Sandra Bullock was just divorced! What?! Yes, she was. I know that Skechers has a shoe called Twinkle Toes and they realllllly want my daughter to buy a pair. That's a use of the First Amendment, I suppose, but some exposing of wrong doing by the wrong doers would also be a good thing.

Think about your freedoms, use them, and fight the good fight!

Happy Fourth of July everybody!






And for fun here's Purple Haze, which he played right after the anthem.



Enjoy, because you can...

Great America Homeschooling Day

My kids don't "go back to school" because we homeschool. We don't have a start to the year and just keep doing what we do all year round. We do however have a homeschooling day at Great America while other kids are at school and it is still nice out. Great America gets a whole lot of cash that they wouldn't otherwise and the homeschooling attendees get a whole lot of rides because there are no lines! It is shocking how short the wait is for the rides. Some rides had no wait at all and because of it the kids were allowed to go again without even getting out of the car.

We ran into some friends and the kids went on some of the rides with them. We also peeled away to do our own thing sometimes. All total my kids went on rides 17 times. They went on roller coasters, water rafts and spinning cups called the Fiddlers Fling. They dropped from towers, were flung upside down, spun sideways and defied gravity in other interesting, dizzying ways.

I only went on the water raft because I am lame. I am not ashamed to admit that and readily accept how it mirrors my own mother's behavior from my childhood. "We mock the things we are to be!"

My husband went on almost all of the rides with the kids. They all loved it and no one got sick.

While they rode, I sat on a wooden bench in the pleasant shade and read a book and enjoyed all of the other homeschooling kids walking with their friends and their parents and siblings going from ride to ride.

How is it that I am now exhausted?

How??

How can four kids ranging from ages 8 to 11 years old reenact scenes from Revenge of the Sith complete with crackling force lightning sound effects and wielding foam and PVC duct tape swords (they can be light sabers if you so pretend) having only had about 4 hours sleep?

How?

Why do I always forget that this is the magical thing that happens during sleep-overs? They need nothing more than movies and popcorn and pancakes the next morning and only a couple of hours of sleep.

The parents, however, may need more. Maybe. Quite possibly, if you stop to think about it. Which I would do if I had more sleep...

Warn Your Children...

My friend M. brought her acoustic guitar to the park today. She played Joan Baez songs and others including this old one, The House of the Rising Sun.

Here, The Animals perform their version. It's pretty good too.

Who knew you could rock out with an organ?

Sunday Bunny

There we all were: my husband, our friend Neo-agrarian and me with my flute. They were playing guitar and hammer dulcimer...

and Neo-agrarian pointed out a bunny to me in our back yard. I put down the flute and took some pictures.

Looking at a dandelion--eat it, bunny!

It ate it! Nice work, bunny. Just help yourself.

Looking for more dandelions.

Starting to notice me, kind of.

On alert, about to run away.

And then he/she did run away. It was such a sweet, earnest little creature--nibbling gently on dandelions and not on my prairie plants I have in the corner of my yard. Although, I do notice the tell tale sign of angled clean cuts on some of the stems--evidence of rabbit bites. Darn it!

Just stick to the dandelions, please. Thank you bunnies. You're welcome back any time.

We Visited a Mosque

My friend, who was once teaching my daughter and me embroidery before I realized that I hated it and didn't want to learn embroidery, is Muslim. She is a practicing Muslim and recently had an open house at her mosque so her non-Muslim friends and acquaintances could come and ask questions and so we all could share some recognition of commonality.

It was a lovely, warm time.

I had met some of her Muslim friends before at a Weston A. Price meeting, and had seen another woman before at a science fair at a nature preserve, and at the recent homeschooling conference. These are some people who I have a passing acquaintance with and I felt very comfortable there.

My daughter had a great time getting henna decorations on her hands; it is also known as mendhi.

It kind of looks like brown, fine-tip marker, and I believe I know someone who will try to replicate this same effect once the henna wears off. I just think it's likely...

My son, unlike my getting-decorated-with-the-cool-henna daughter, was almost bored completely out of his mind. Like any religious tradition, the speakers tend to be a bit long winded. Yep. Check. We had long windedness. But, the recitation of the Koran at the beginning was beautiful. It was sort of sung and sort of intoned by an older gentleman and he had slight, intention filled pauses that lent it a grace and a spirituality that I didn't think I'd recognize there. I spoke later with my friend's husband and he said even if you don't understand the Arabic, people are sometimes moved to tears by it. I could see that.

I asked some questions after having gone online the night before. I didn't want to inadvertently offend anyone, and because my ignorance is vast, I thought I should have some basis for some of my questions. I wanted a basic understanding.

I found out about the 5 pillars of Islam.

1. Faith and belief in God--Allah.
2. Prayer 5 times a day.
3. Fasting for Ramadan.
4. Giving 2 1/2 % of your value to charity (Not 2 1/2 % of your money--your value. You include your car, house etc. in that figure.)
5. Visit to Mecca at least once--The Hajj.

I wondered about fatwas. I had a vague understanding, but asked for more information at the mosque.

They instantly got a bit defensive and started talking about Jihad, and I explained that I wasn't really asking about that. I had seen online at a site a listing of new fatwas. A fatwa is a judgement based on Koranic law about an issue in a person's life. The fatwa is handed down by a scholar or someone with authority with knowledge of the Koran. I had noticed a question a college student had about whether he could cut his prayers short because he had a long commute to school. There was a fatwa issued about that. I didn't find out what the verdict was on that, but was more interested in the idea that Muslim life is so proscribed by ritual and etiquette and traditions that no one wavers from.

Again my friend's husband later explained to me that it is a way of life that they always know as they grow up and it is steeped in their daily habits. They eat with the right hand and not with the left. They enter a bathroom with one foot and exit it with the other. There are rules of etiquette that describe proper Muslim behavior and it is second nature to them. My friends don't think to question it--it is more than cultural. It is one of the ways they honor Allah.

The not quite Imam who was speaking and answering questions explained that a fatwa can apply to an individual person and not necessarily to the whole Muslim community. And online I had noticed that it said that the conscience of the person still must guide their acceptance or rejection of the fatwa.

I asked about the hijab. I had read that there is some discussion about the reference to covering yourself as a woman in the Koran and that it only specifically mentioned the wives of Mohammad. No one else was told to cover themselves in that way. They explained that it is in the Koran and that there were ways that Mohammed's wives should cover themselves and the way others do. They also said that the hijab is a way of following in the good example of Mohammed's wives. All of the women at the mosque looked comfortable and were very cheerful and welcoming.

There was wonderful food that my friend had made and that was also catered. We had curried chicken and rice and a bulgar, lentil, beef dish with caramelized onions on top. The kids found the dessert trays and enjoyed the various cookies.

At 6:00 everyone had to go pray. We were able to watch the men on a closed circuit TV, but were not to go into their side. The women had a different room and prayed in exactly the same way as the men did and at the same time.

My son was able to join the men and stayed in the back of the room. He later asked my friend, at my urging, why they kept saying, "Riiiise up white men. Riiiise up white men." Well, my friend laughed because that's a little bit what the Arabic sounded like, but that's not what was being said. She thought that was cute.

My son knelt down at one point, as the men did in front of him. Not in imitation or in a disrespectful way, but my son did it just to feel it in his body as they did it as part of their prayer.

We are not a religious family at all. My husband and I are agnostic/atheists. We leave a little wiggle room for the possibility of God and we feel the wonder of the universe and of life and of our children. We know life is fleeting. We know life is beautiful and has meaning--just not what all of the religions necessarily ascribe to it.

Religion feels very manufactured to us. My husband should know, he designs stuff for a company after all. It feels like other man made things. Catholics have incense and confession. Muslims have prayer 5 times a day and a set of rules for daily living. Jews (like Muslims) can't eat pork, have to use separate dishes for dairy items and meat items, if they keep kosher. It all seems a bit forced to me.

Having said all of that, I have an appreciation for everybody's right to their religion. I like this country. I like that we have encoded in The Constitution the right to believe whatever we want. That is supremely American.

I wanted to visit my friend's mosque because I did want to have a chance to ask some questions. But, I had another reason for going as well.

A while ago, my friend was driving and a friend was with her. Both had on the hijab. My friend's two daughters were in the back. These are girls who attend a performing class with my kids. These are girls that played with my daughter while I grudgingly learned embroidery until I got up the nerve to explain to my friend that I didn't want to learn embroidery. These are sweet girls.

My friend was driving through a kind of upscale community. It's a little bit horsey and lot white. A guy in a pickup truck drove her off the road, and yelled at her once she came to a stop. He called her a foul name and told her to go back to her own country. This is not OK.

The police did not file a report at the station after my friend told them what happened. This is also not OK.

We visited a mosque to learn a bit and try to see how we are all human and American. Gosh, that sounds so silly as I read that back to myself. Of course we are all human! Yet, we still see so many as The Other. I visited to show my friend support and to show the greater Muslim community at her mosque that there are Americans who don't see them as an enemy or as The Other.

Plus, there was great food, and that couldn't hurt either...

A Blog by Any Other Name...

My kids have blogs!! What was just an offhand suggestion that maybe they would like to create their own blogs, has become a viral popping up of all sorts of blogs throughout our homeschooling group--lots of the kids now have blogs, with more being created every day!

My son and daughter now have their own e-mail addresses, the better to create their own autonomous blogs where they can download pictures and polls and movies and funny stories about their family. And, by the way, where they can write and read and share in meaningful ways with their friends and family.

With all of this creativity expressed by my kids, they have been using up a lot of computer time--I'm not getting any! OK, I'm still getting some, but it is far less than I had.

I'm sure that screen time is damaging to them--right? I'm sure I should be limiting it far more so that I can have my screen time--right? Isn't there a study somewhere to support the idea that the unbridled, shared creativity of kids is a bad, bad thing?

Really, what good can possibly come from this? I ask you...

You Must Have Patience, Grasshopper

Over a year ago, I posted about getting useless junk mail. I used to get tons of it every day and then I started removing myself from the catalogs' mailing lists. My friend Unnamed had told me about the site Catalog Choice where you can enter in your request to be removed from the mailing lists and then you won't receive those catalogs any more.

Slowly, bit by bit, I received fewer and fewer catalogs every day. It is a mere trickle now. However, the other day I got a notice from Lands End saying they were just then removing me from their list. It has been a year. And, I might still receive some catalogs already in the pipeline.


They suggest that I might appreciate their e-mail newsletter instead. No, that's OK, thanks.

Everything comes to those who wait. Or, in this case, doesn't come any more.

Uh oh...I've Discovered Facebook...

Well, I am now a member of Facebook. You know what that means don't you? I will never experience reality again. Never. All of my understanding of the world will come through Daily Kos and Huffington Post and Mothering.com and now my connection to my friends will come through their and my Facebook pages. On the other hand, I wasn't calling anyone, and no one was calling me and I have now had little chats here and there yesterday and the night before with the fun, caring people who are my friends, but when do we have time to connect? We don't.

I've slipped into the Matrix...or have I? Or was my life before the Matrix?

My Old Neighbor Buddy Mondlock

Here is a song by Buddy Mondlock who was one of the older kids who lived down the street from my family when I was a kid. It is a hopeful song about Barack Obama and was written by Buddy's dad who was a friend of my parents too. Small world.

Many people may not know who Buddy is, but if you're part of the Nashville music scene, you do know him as a great song writer and performer. He has collaborated with Suzanne Vega and more recently Art Garfunkle among others. It's been fun to see his career develop and grow from a distance and with a memory of playing running bases with him and his sisters and brother in the open lot down the street from us.

Thanks for the songs, Buddy.




Here's one of his classics, The Kid.

The Best Christmas Cookies Ever

Taste is subjective. So, when I say these are the best Christmas cookies ever, there may, of course, be some people who would think they are heinous...I can respect that. However, they would be wrong, because these are, in fact, the best Christmas cookies ever.

Chocolate Filled Snowballs. Mmmmm. Delicious. A nutty, buttery shortbread surrounds a chocolate kiss that gets softened from the baking. Oh. My. God.

Look. Look! Can you imagine how there's a chocolate kiss in there? There is and it's fantastic. Don't you think Santa would appreciate getting a plate of these?

Come closer.



Closer still.

Yeah, right there. Do you see these babies?! Finely chopped pecans are mixed into butter, flour, sugar and a little vanilla. And then you stick a chocolate kiss in there. Do you even believe that?!

If you are like my family, you will fill cello bags with about 24 cookies, tie with rafia at the top, put a tag on wishing Merry Christmas and deliver, secretly, to your friends' houses putting the cookies in the door and then running like hell to the car where your mom makes a getaway before the people can discover the cookies in the door. We did that for a few years and then I felt it was too much work. It was fun for the couple of years we did it though. My kids felt like they were Santa.

Chocolate Filled Snowballs

1/2 lb. softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 pkg. chocolate kisses (5 oz.)

Beat butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add sifted flour (although I never sift, except for cakes...you do what you will), and nuts. Blend well. Chill dough for an hour. Remove foil and the little paper ripper thingies from the kisses. Shape dough around kisses (about 1 Tbsp. dough for each). Roll in hands to smooth and put on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. You want the cookies to be set but not brown. Cool slightly and then remove to racks to cool more. Dust with confectioners sugar. Secretly give out to friends and loved ones. Double the recipe, because a single recipe won't be nearly enough.

Happy cookies and Merry L'Chaim!

Monsanto is Evil...and, I have to Address X-mas Cards

I really have to address Christmas cards, but I want to rail about the evils of Monsanto after having read this post at DailyKos...

Here's an excerpt:

Having bought up the normal seed companies, having locked farmers in the Midwest (only an example, it is true worldwide) into patent contracts that remove their right to collect seeds anymore, having set loose a biotechnology that contaminates normal seeds of farmers who do not buy into the patented seeds, having made plain it will sue if even a volunteer plant comes up, Monsanto is now working to eliminate the last man standing between humans and corporate privatized seeds - the seed cleaner.

The farmers has had three choices - to buy normal seed (now almost gone), to buy GE-seeds at huge cost (and going
up

http://www.opednews.com/...

or to collect their own seeds and use them the next season. If a farmer has even 10 acres, collecting and cleaning those seeds is a huge task. If he has 1000, it would be an impossible task without the seed cleaner whose equipment can separate out seed in just a few hours and whose costs are 1/3 that of buying normal seed.

Thus, the move to eliminate seed cleaners.

The seed cleaner is the man who makes sustainable agriculture possible.

So, Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners now across the Midwest, in Missouri,

http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/...

in Indiana,

http://www.cbsnews.com/...

and now in Illinois where they are going after Steve Hixon.

Shortly after someone broke into Mr. Hixon's office and he found his account book on his truck seat where he would never have left it, and every one of his remotely located and very scattered customers had three men (described as goons with "no necks") arrive at their farm, going out onto it without permission. They appear to have serving over 200 farmers. Mr. Hixon and state police who were called in, believe a GPS tracking device may have been put on Mr. Hixon's mobile seed cleaning equipment. All of his customers being sued are being intensely pressured to settle, with men coming back again and again and with daily calls and letters. It appears they are being given a choice between being sued or settling out of court or testifying against Mr. Hixon that he encouraged them to clean GE-seeds.

Monsanto has made a fortune on these kinds of Mafia extortion settlements since no farmer has the money to stand up to them, so paying them off some huge amount even if the farmer has done nothing, saves them from legal costs they can't possibly manage and a potentially worse fate if they hire some little local lawyer to go up against not one but multiple legal teams working for Monsanto and present in court. And almost always the case is set in St. Louis where Monsanto is based).

The first words out of the judge's mouth when Moe Parr, a seed cleaner in Indiana, was sued, were "It's a honor to have a fine company like Monsanto in my courtroom."

In addition to the personal attacks on seed cleaners, Monsanto is getting laws put into place in state after state that themselves are overwhelming and destructive of seed cleaners and all those who save normal seeds.

So any commercial seed cleaning operation (and I'm sorry--but, I didn't know such a thing existed--I am so removed from truly understanding how food gets to my table...) may now be in for a hard time because of Monsanto.

Let's read on, shall we?

If Monsanto can eliminate seed cleaners, they would have accomplished a TOTAL monopoly in the Midwest, the bread basket of the world, and they would control world food, feed and now bio-fuel prices at will. They would, as well, have broken the fragile dam that seed cleaners and seed bankers now provide against the insanely-fast and just plain insane on-coming tide genetic engineering.

And Monsanto is working closely with the FDA in redefining seeds as a potential health hazard, subject to bioterrorism, and under that rubric to create rules for importation (controlling access)

Interim final rules on Prior Notice of Importation

rules for registering acceptable facilities (setting up corporate standards for the storage seeds, threatening small farmers)

Interim final rules on Registration of Food Facilities

rules for talking police control of the seeds (allowing for raids on farmers)

Final rules on Administrative Detention

and rules for a level of record keeping almost impossible for small farmers and ordinary people to achieve.

Upcoming final rule on Establishment and Maintenance of Records.

"These new rules will allow FDA to better identify potentially dangerous foods, as well as respond more quickly to new threats and to handle foodborne illness outbreaks more efficiently."

Using the Bioterrorism Act and the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN), the FDA now has a focus on seeds which includes

1. Prevention (federal and state surveillance sampling programs to monitor the food supply)

2. Preparedness (strengthen laboratory capacity and capabilities)

3. Response (surge capacity to handle terrorist attacks or a national emergency involving the food supply), and

4. Recovery (support recalls, seizures, and disposal of contaminated food or feed to restore confidence in the food supply).

For those of you painfully familiar with what is happening to real milk dairy farmers and the government use of false "contamination" reports to raid farms, steal products ad equipment and terrorize and destroy farmers, it will be important to see how "bioterrorism" has now moved control over normal food even more tightly into the hands of government/corporate agencies, giving them national reach, crushing regulations for farmers, immense policing power over food, and the use of an emergency to be able to seize and destroy anything they choose.

So, more fear based policy in order to cow (pun kinda intended) us into submission about these crazy agriculture policies that do nothing but make it even easier for Monsanto to take over the control of SEEDS!!! That's crazy!! Under the guise of protecting us from bioterrorism, they can take control.

Wait, there's more:

The FDA talks about "a safety net" for human health but it is one defined by corporations and one that is closing on our small farmers' existence.

And even the FDA's basic food safety is being "set" in a way aimed to destroy seed cleaners and (if you will notice in the short list below) organic farming itself.

FDA's guidance on good agricultural practices (GAPs) can be found in the

FDA Guide to Minimize Microbial Hazards for Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

where the key sources of contamination in seed production include:

Agricultural water sources
Use of manure as fertilizer
Harvesting, transportation, and seed-cleaning equipment
Seed storage facilities

Please note the FDA does not include Monsanto's petroleum-based fertlizers or pesticides, or GE-labs, as potential sources of contamination.

And finally there is this plea:

We need to understand that the effort to defend Steve Hixon, a seed cleaner, is an effort to defend the right of all of us and of our farmers worldwide to OPEN access to normal seeds. We must protect those who collect and clean them and we must roll back the massive corporate efforts to utterly control them - by criminalizing any aspect of owning, growing, collecting, storing and re-using of them.

Seeds are life and survival itself and our human right to access to them is being taken over. That is why people are coming together now to help defend Steve Hixon, a seed cleaner.

For those interested in joining FarmOn, a list aimed at providing funds to support the legal teams gathering to help Hixon, go to farmon@googlegroups.com and request to sign on.

Now I have to go address Christmas cards and send out our love to family and friends alike...

"Effing Monsanto...", *grumbles while gathering up cards and address book*

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy day of thankfulness in the full realization of everything we have. Wow. It's a lot, isn't it?

Here's my personal thankful list:

• Husband. He is my partner, and confidante, and friend. Resident smart-ass too. I get a belly laugh from him almost every day--isn't that amazing? Also, he puts up with my idiosyncrasies--which can't be that easy to do.
• Children. I've heard this before and I think it's true--they are my heart walking around in the world. I didn't know I could love as much as I do before I gave birth to my babies. My son is energetic and feeling and smart and funny and sweet. My daughter is energetic and feeling and smart and funny and sweet. Together, they are a dynamic duo that alternately delight, amaze and stupefy me. I love them!
• Family. These are the people who brought me into the world and showed me how it works and showed me how to care. My Mom and Dad are amazing. I learn from them all of the time. Parents can always be teachers, can't they? My brother and sisters--also showed me about life and continue to be a source of learning for me. Plus, they love me. When my siblings and I get together, we can get each other laughing to the point of tears--silly stuff--explodes the heart, really.
• Friends. Our friends are our second family and they fill our hearts. We learn from them, feel supported by them and enjoy camaraderie that comes in following slightly different paths than the norm. We can all be weirdos together and realize that it's all so normal after all.
  
• Our Cat. Daisy is here and loving and involved with our family. When she's not napping, she's with us, visiting wherever we are. She is affectionate and is aware of our moods--she comforts us after boo-boos or hurt feelings. She is 23 years old (about 104 in human years). Every day she is here is a gift from her.
  
• Our Comfort. I don't have it bad. I have it good. My husband has a good job and we're so grateful he has it and how it allows me to be with the kids and give them lessons and classes and books and museum visits and field trips, etc. We don't have to worry about bills. Others are having a harder time and we know that. It's not easy for lots of people.
• Our Health. We are in good health. We feel comfortable almost all of the time. We sleep easily and have energy. We may get an occasional cold, and then it goes away quickly.
• Good Food. I'm so glad I found the farming cooperative that we get our raw milk from. They are a group of wonderful farming families who produce clean, fresh, whole food. We know our milk from grass-fed cows is nutritious and healthful for us. Lots of people can not find such a source--we're lucky. We can go to any one of several grocery stores and get fresh vegetables and fruits. We have access to organic produce as well as conventional. We know that there are people in depressed, urban areas who have no access to grocery stores--they're not there. So, all they can get is cheap, unhealthy junk food. We're very grateful for our vegetables, and fruit and whole grain bread. It helps us to be healthy and we know that.

What is on your list? What are the things in your life, that if they were taken away from you would be like a nightmare? What's the most important to you?

What are you thankful for?

Sparking in the Dark--It's Not What You Think...

Do you guys know Robert Krampf? He has a traveling show about electricity where he shows the effects of a Tesla Coil. He also has these nifty, handy dandy experiments that he sends out every week that you can do at home with easily available household items.

During a recent playdate, my kids went into the bathroom with their friend A. and started ripping off lengths of masking tape. I put a blanket down at the bottom of the door to make sure it was as dark as it could be. Then, I heard gleeful shouts as they were making all sorts of sparks in there. Positive charge met negative charge and then whamo! Spark!

Who says science is boring? Who says kids have to sit down to learn? Who says kids can't do things for themselves?

Here is Robert Krampf's experiment as it was e-mailed to me. See what sparks you and your kids can make.

There is a link where you can sign up and get these experiments too. Happy science!

Robert Krampf's Experiment of the Week
Electric Tape

If your email program can't display HTML, go to: http://krampf.com/members/recent-experiment-week-newsletters to read the web version.

To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this email. Otherwise, please add this e-mail address, Experiments@krampf.com, to your spam filter’s white list. If this message is in your spam folder and you want to keep it, please click your "Not Spam" button now.

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The Hottest Part of the Flame video

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Electric Tape

Greetings from our home at the beach. I spent today on the beach at Washington Oaks State Park, taping for the "Rock" video. Who would ever have thought that I would be producing and starring in rock videos? Of course, with my beard and shades, I have been told I look a bit like a member of ZZ Top. I also got quite a bit of footage for upcoming videos on energy and the food chain, as well as having lots of fun playing in the rocks. The tide was low, and the tide pools had lots of fish, snails, clams, limpets, and other fun creatures to watch and videotape.

I really wanted to use the Electric Tape experiment for this week's video, but the sparks did not show up enough on tape. Instead, this week's members video is on scientific observations for the hottest part of the flame. In science, observation is very important, but it is also important to interpret those observations to reach the right conclusion. It may surprise you to find out that the hottest part of the flame is not at the top.

After the recent news articles about producing x-rays with adhesive tape, I thought it would be fun to do an experiment that would help explain how it works. You will need:

- adhesive tape

- a very dark room

You can use just about any kind of adhesive tape for this experiment. Some will work better than others, but you should get visible flashes from all of them. Before you turn out the lights, pull a little of the tape away from the roll. It is much easier to do this when you can see what you are doing. You may want to fold the end of the tape over, to make a tab to hold onto.

Turn out the lights and get the room as dark as possible. Wait a minute or so, to let your eyes adjust to the darkness, and then look for sources of light that you can block. You may be surprised that so much light is coming into your "dark room." If you can't get the room dark enough, you may need to use a closet instead. The darker the room is, the easier it will be to see the results.

Once your eyes have adjusted and the room is very dark, you are ready to make some sparks. Hold the roll of tape in one hand. With the other hand, grasp the tab on the end of the tape. Watching the roll, quickly pull some tape from the roll. As you do this, you should see flashes of light coming from the tape as it pulls away from the roll.

Cool! Try it again. It is always a good idea to repeat experiments, especially the fun ones. Also, you don't have to worry about x-rays. That only happens in a vacuum.

What is happening? When you pull the tape from the roll (or from another surface), the rapidly stretched adhesive develops a strong positive charge at one end, and a strong negative charge at the other. This property, called triboluminescence, is also what causes the sparks that you see when you bite a wintergreen candy in a dark room. Electrons jump from the negative area to the positive area, producing a spark makes the flash.

In air, all you get is the spark, because the air slows the electrons, but in a vacuum, the electrons hit with enough speed to produce x-rays. Of course, now I want to know if biting a wintergreen candy in a vacuum also produces x-rays. I can see it now. X-ray machines powered by wintergreen candy. Boy, that would be a Lifesaver!

Have a wonder-filled week.

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What About the Judges?

You're at your polling place on Tuesday all set to vote and there, among all of the other positions to vote on, is a list of names of judges that is your duty to decide whether they're in or out. Normally, I have followed my parents lead and voted "NO" to all of them. If I didn't know, I certainly didn't want to retain or vote in a terrible judge. These people decide the fate of other people--I better get this right.

If you have nothing else to go on, you don't want to just resort to voting for the woman as a default . Although, I have done this in the past. I figured women could have the same right to fuck it up as the men have had. That's not a good way to decide who gets to decide things. Some people have voted for the person with the less ethnic sounding name and ended up with Lyndon LaRouche supporters almost making it into office.

Who was Lyndon LaRouche, you ask? He was a crazy guy who believed Queen Elizabeth was part of a huge drug ring, and believed AIDS patients should be quarantined and we should have tanks go down the streets to enforce laws. You know, he was a moderate. LaRouche fielded some candidates here in Illinois and they beat out other Democrats in the primary and almost won their offices! There really is a better way to pick candidates.

Thanks to my friend, Unnamed, I have just read an assessment from the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screenings of judges running for office or retention in Cook County, Illinois. The alliance is comprised of: the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Chicago, Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Chicago Council of Lawyers, Cook County Bar Association, Decalogue Society of Lawyers, Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, Illinois State Bar Association, Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago, Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois, and Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. They know the judges. I trust them to know if they're good or not.

I noticed that of the judges who were rated as not qualified, it was unanimous across the board. Every one of these groups thought the bad judges were bad. Universal disregard tells me something.

Thanks Unnamed. I now have a list of people to vote out, and a list to keep in.

This is better than just voting for some default or voting for extreme political crazies.

Chili Cook Off/Music Making Merriment

Last night we went to a chili cook off at our friends' house. It was their son's idea and everyone had a wonderful time. We all had lots of delicious chili--all different types: curry with coconut milk, green with turkey, vegan without turkey, lots with beans, with meat, with various chilies. We had lots of good bread, and yummy sweets. We also had fun making music.

As we were nearing the end, we started singing songs together too. We sang Dream a Little Dream and while we didn't sound nearly as good as Mama Cass, still, we felt beautiful singing it together.

Let's listen to this lovely song sung by a beautiful voice--Mama Cass's.

Guess Where We're Going!

We're going to the zoo! We just got invited and it will be a lot of fun.

But, we can't stay all day. One of the kids has a class to attend and I have to take our perfectly non-polluting car in for emissions testing. That's where I'll talk to the kids about government programs--thems that works and thems that don't.

Have fun wherever you go today.

Plastic Spiders...

It's plastic spider season! It's the time of year when thousands of useless plastic doodads will cross everyone's path, especially parents and kids, in the days leading up to Halloween. The plastic stuff will kick around for a while and then be thrown out to be replaced by Christmas plastic doodads right around the corner.

Thinking about plastic spiders leads me to think about how my life might have gone.

My life has not gone in a straight path. I think that's probably true for lots of people as well, I know I'm not alone in that. I didn't finish college *hangs head in shame* and I never had a business career despite my tall height. My very successful aunt who worked in an advertising agency had told me that my height would be an advantage when I got a career--she thought that it could be intimidating...I never went that way, thanks though Aunt C.

When my husband and I were dating, I felt some regret--a lot of regret--that I hadn't finished school and that my life had taken some turns and twists and I felt that I had not gone the way I should have. Maybe I should have had a career in advertising as many in my family had had. I should have finished school at Harvard, Colombia, Penn State, Madison, Wheelock, Cornell, Yale, Dartmouth, University of Chicago or any of the other places people in my family have successfully had academic careers and then went on to stellar business careers. I shouldn't have dropped out and been aimless and depressed and married to the wrong guy and then stayed with him too long and...and...and.

My husband, boyfriend at the time, pointed out to me that the business world is not all it's cracked up to be. He shared his very insightful world view and explained that the giant freighters filled with giant cartons of plastic spiders chugging their way across the ocean from China were the result of several business meetings and angry phone calls and refining of designs and always looking at the bottom line. How could we shave the plastic spider cost--could we shorten the legs and still have a good design? Could we use a cheaper plastic? Could we make the body more narrow? Are there other vendors we can get material from? Can we use some of that slave prison labor in China?

Really? You're kidding me, right? But, of course he wasn't kidding me. These products really are made and people really are having earnest discussions with one another about spider legs and vendor costs. How are plastic spiders going to be made unless people design them and figure it all out? It could just as easily be kitchen knives or makeup or power tools. It's all the same discussion. At least until all of the jobs are outsourced.

My husband telling me all of that did make me feel better. There would be no way I would want my life spent figuring out how to shave the cost off of plastic spider legs. Of course, I could have done other things than pursue a lucrative career in plastic spider production, but it's still OK that my life took a crazy route--I saw different things and learned different things than I would have if my life had gone straight down the middle. I learned a lot, actually.

My life is wonderful now. I love my husband and my two kids. I love our lifestyle. I love our friends--I really do. They are a wonderful community of support and endless stimulation. I know really interesting, creative people. I love my family, and only wish that we could see one another more often.

So, it's OK that I had a certain trajectory with my life and then got off course. That landed me here and not with the plastic spiders. My human loves are greater than any business love would have been. I'm not knocking anyone else if they want to design the spiders and have earnest phone calls about it all. Go for it. I'm just saying that I prefer to be earnest about this election, for example, because it's too important not to care. I'd rather get worked up about making sure my kids have a sense of kindness and justice and fairness. I feel lucky that I get to care about the things in life that I feel are important and seldom do I feel compelled to care about things that aren't...like plastic spiders from China.

How to Have a Hootenanny...a What?

When my husband was a senior at U of I, he broke his leg while skateboarding. He was hopping a curb, as he always did, and somehow he landed wrong and broke his leg. It was a compound fracture, the kind you hear about in health class when you're learning about such things. The kind of fracture that everyone goes "Ewwwww..." about. My poor husband.

He had to have a cast and use a cane for a year. He hadn't gotten a job yet after school, and his mother saw a dulcimer kit on one of her many travels (she travels a lot), this time in Kentucky or South Carolina or somewhere in Appalachia. She thought this would be something enjoyable for her son to work on while his leg healed.

So because of the broken leg, and the loving Mom, my husband came to have an instrument that he had never seen or even heard of. How can there still be things in America from other cultures that we don't know about? It's exciting, though, to always have more to learn. Always.

My husband now has his mountain dulcimer that he made. It looks something like this.

Along the way, he has also picked up a love of ukuleles. He has two that look like this.

One is smaller and is called a Flea.

He plays camp songs, and of course Hawaiian songs and even 60's songs. He joined my daughter on stage for the talent show at the Homeschooling Conference we went to last year and played Take Me Out to the Ballgame while my daughter sang her heart out. He can jam on ukuleles. Well, as much as one can jam on a ukulele.

My husband also can play the beginnings of tons of songs on guitar which he learned to do while a teenager. He wasn't much interested in perfecting any one song, but it would be suh-weet to learn the beginning of a bunch. So, he can play: Blackbird and Smoke on the Water, and Pinball Wizard. My husband is musical but never really thought so because he hasn't perfected many songs. And yet, right after he rides home on his bike from work, he'll grab a uke from the top of the piano and start playing as he walks around the house and says hello to us. For many years he's been wanting to play music with other people.

A while ago, our friend Neo-agrarian got a hammer dulcimer. It looks a little like this.

It was a while before my husband knew that our friend had gotten this. Our friend didn't realize that my husband had a mountain dulcimer, and then somehow they both found out and decided they should try to play them together. So they did.

For a couple of months, our friend would come over on some weekends and play. Sometimes he would come during the week after a class that our kids are all in together. I enjoyed listening to them together. There were long discussions about the different tuning and different characteristics of the two dulcimers.

I realized that it could be fun if we had a hootenanny. We could all make music together--the kids included!

What is a hootenanny? Here's part of a Wikipedia entry:

Hootenanny was used in the early twentieth century America to refer to things whose names were forgotten or unknown. In this usage it was synonymous with thingamajig or whatchamacallit, as in "hand me that hootenanny." Hootenanny was also an old country word for "party". Now, most commonly, it refers to a folk-music party.

According to Pete Seeger, in various interviews, he first heard the word hootenanny in Seattle, Washington in the late 1930s. It was used by Hugh Delacey’s New Deal political club to describe their monthly music fund raisers. After some debate the club voted in the word hootenanny, which narrowly beat out the word wingding. Seeger, Woody Guthrie and other members of the Almanac Singers later used the word in New York City to describe their weekly rent parties, which featured many notable folksingers of the time. Joan Baez made the analogy that a hootenanny is to folk singing what a jam session is to jazz.

We all worked on a handful of songs: Shenandoah, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Amazing Grace, Greensleeves and Scarborough Fair. I realized that I could get some practice in with the guys before the big party day, so I got out my flute from the crawl where it has been sitting idle and unblown for the 10 years we have been in this house. I took lessons as a kid and I never have really played as an adult. But, I did now and it was a blast.

Saturday night was the Hootenanny. We had the two dulcimer players, the floutest, a mandolin player, a recorder player, a cellist, a trombone player, a guitarist and a snare drum player. Um, not exactly the classic folk music line up, but a thoroughly enjoyable mix of adults and kids all playing their hearts out in all sorts of keys and tempos. It was hilarious, uproarious and amazing. We were making music together!

The kids all scattered and ate up the cookies and the chocolate almond torte and the chips and guacamole and salsa and deviled eggs all disappeared and the trifle I made was good but too rich and so it was just us adults making music on the porch while the kids all played. We drank sangrias and mead and beer and red wine and pink lemonade, and we laughed. And we took solos. And we played the same song over and over again really starting to groove.

I taught the group a couple of rounds to sing, and it was fun even with the realization that many of us are terrible singers. OK I am--it's not a crime, you know. Again, hardly the point of all of this, and it didn't matter any way.

Listen to this. If we were a little bit better we would have sounded like that--kind of.

There is serious discussion now about someone hosting a chili cook off in the fall and there will be music again. The theme this time is songs of the west. So far we have Home on the Range and Ghostriders in the Sky. Can you think of other songs we might try? Based on this first hootenanny, I know we will need lots of practice to get something that sounds good. Practicing is part of the charm and the fun.

Here's how you have a hooteanny: agree on some pieces of music to practice, invite friends who can play something, or sing, or tap a toe, make some fabulous food, have some wine and then play your hearts out in unison and with friendship and joy.

I Can Bake a Cherry Pie

Click on the photo. (By the way, this is not my pie, this is some anonymous internet pie--my pie looks more golden and less red. Also, I didn't bother with a lattice top, I just did a plain old double crust)

Yesterday, I went to my friend M's house to help her pick her sour cherry tree clean, before the bugs get them all or the cherries fall to the ground in a scattered rotted mess. She graciously let me have some cherries, so today I made a cherry pie.

My Grandmother, who loved ginger and chestnuts and marzipan, would have loved this pie too--cherry was her favorite.

Can you bake a cherry pie?