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What Do We Want? Better Gun Laws.

6/30/2016

Yesterday afternoon after our customary Wednesday morning conclave of the Panera Posse,

...one of the Posse members and myself headed across town to the Columbus suburb of Worthington,

to the office of our district Congressman Pat Tiberi

...to join in a protest outside Congressman Tiberi's office calling for Congress to pass stricter gun laws.
This week the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence (OCAGV) has been coordinating events across Ohio as part of anti- gun violence campaign called Ohio Sit-In to #DisarmHate.

Yesterday, in tandem with our demonstration in Worthington,

...people also came together throughout the day to protest gun violence in the cities of Norwalk, Bowling Green and Cincinnati.

The Worthington protest was scheduled to take place between 1:00 to 2:00 pm, though by the time my friend and I arrived at 1:00 several dozen people already lined the sidewalk outside Mr. Tiberi's office at 250 East Wilson Bridge Road waving signs, some provided by the OCAGV,

...and some home-
made.

From time to time we broke into a chant of "Disarm Hate!" or

"Ban AR-15's",

...or "What do we want? Gun control! When do we want it? Now!"

One of every few cars that passed us by honked in support, though one youngster driving a Jimmy John's delivery vehicle slowed down to give us the finger, and another guy shouted as he drove by, "Why don't you get a job?!"

...which sent a ripple of laughter thorough the group as most of the demonstrators were obviously retirees,

...though there was a group of cute, socially conscious little ones among us.

The local TV station was there,

,,,and interviewed my Posse pal.

I got into a conversations with several of my fellow protesters,

...including a lovely lady named Elicia L. Finnell,

...who founded the Jobs for Columbus Initiative,

...which is promoting a tax-ballot issue to raise the Columbus tax rates by 1/2% to fund job-training internships "to keep residents from falling off the financial edge while waiting out the economic recession and the return of higher paying jobs into our cities."

After we'd been outside for about 50 minutes a representative from the OCAGV led us across the parking lot,

...to Pat Tiberi's office,

....which we were allowed to enter, and where we staged a sit-in, though Congressman Tiberi was, we were told, out at a scheduled appointment.

We sat in for a symbolic 8 minutes since an Ohioan falls victim to gun violence every 8 hours.

       Pat Tiberi's office released the following statement in response to the sit-in:
     “Congressman Tiberi supports the Second Amendment and preserving the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. Regarding expanding background checks, Congressman Tiberi believes we need to ensure current laws are properly enforced to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists, while also ensuring we are protecting the rights of responsible and lawful gun owners.”
     Which was basically saying nada.
     But that's okay, it's not over yet. There's going to another Ohio Sit-In to #DisarmHate demonstration tomorrow

at Congressman Steve Stivers' office.

The address is 3790 Municipal Way, Hilliard, OH 43026.

Anybody else want to join me?

http://www.10tv.com/article/dozens-protesters-picket-rep-tiberis-office-hoping-stricter-gun-laws

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Old-School Lockers

6/29/2016

2 Comments

     Yesterday afternoon I asked one of my piano students if she was excited about starting middle school. She said she was, and was especially looking forward to having a locker even though at her first middle school orientation a few weeks ago she had a really hard time with her locker, couldn't get the lock to cooperate and then she had to yank and pull at the door to get it opened.
     I chuckled that it sounded like lockers hadn't improved since I was in high school.
     But then it hit me: is it possible that lockers really hadn't improved since I was in high school?
     I asked my student what lockers look like nowadays and how you open them.
     Along with her description she drew me a little illustration of the locker.

The type of locker she depicted immediately resonated with me,

......as the descendant of the old twist-and-yank variety from back in my day, shown here in a detail from my high school's 1968 yearbook.

   Nor does the modus operandi used to open a school locker in 2016 appear to have evolved since my day. According to my student you still have to:
    1. Twirl the dial half a dozen times to the right to clear the lock's brain and get it in the mood, then
    2. Twist the dial to the right, stop on the first number.
    3. Twist the dial to the left past the first number then stop on the second number.
    4. Twist the dial to the right and stop on the third number.
    5. Yank the handle up and pull open, unless you've been cursed with a moody or recalcitrant locker - as my student was on her maiden locker experience - in which case you must:
    6. Yank the handle up and pull again.
    7. Repeat numbers 5 and 6 several times, moan, then
    8. repeat numbers 1 through 7 until the door finally gives and opens a little,

...then yank the begeezes out of that bad boy until you get it,

...or it gets you.

And so one must ponder that well into the 21st Century, when schools are such avid consumers of cutting-edge technology,

...some ambitious entrepreneur has not come up with a more high-tech - and user-friendly - school locker design, like maybe one that uses a key pad, or a swipe-card, or one that take commands from an ipad, or something.

Ah, well, maybe it's not a bad thing that our technologically plugged-in students must still use lockers that are the functional equivalent of the rotary phone.

In fact maybe a bit of old-school experience is a valuable part of the learning process.

As long as they don't bring back penmanship (see post from 8/23/2015).

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Independence Day: Resurgence And Brexit

6/26/2016

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"First came the shock. Then fear..."

The above could well have been the opening lines of the save-the-world-from-alien-invaders movie sequel "Independence Day: Resurgence" that came out this past Friday.

But those words were in fact the opening line of a New York Times article that also came out on Friday, the day after Britain voted to break with the European Union,

...which action economists, world leaders, and human beings around the globe fear may have the opposite effect of saving the world, which was in essence the original, though not-yet achieved, purpose of the European Union.
So now the spirit of accord, common economic and social good and peaceful co-existence that has ruled Western Europe since World War II,

....when Europe suffered death and destruction reaped by human invaders,

...has been fractured by the small majority of Britons who voted for Brexit.
By Friday evening when I was sitting in a movie theater,

...watching greedy alien invaders smash up Earth,

...global stock markets had already taken a similar smashing earlier in the day.

What the long-term effects of Brexit will be for the rest of us on the planet has yet to play out.

But as I sat in that movie theater caught up in the fantasy of a world where all people could come together to defeat* against all odds and hope an exponentially stronger enemy, where Blacks,
Whites, Asians, Americans, Europeans, Africans, Middle-Easterners, young folks, old folks,

...straights,

...and gays,

... could all set aside their differences to unite for the survival of our planet, it occurred to me that maybe what our planet really needs

... is a good alien invasion.

* I don't believe that it's a spoiler to share that the humans defeat the aliens in this movie. After all, does common sense not beg the question that if earth were destroyed in this sequel, how could there then be a 3rd, 4th, and 5th Independence Day sequel?

Reference:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/merkel-sees-no-need-to-rush-britain-into-quick-eu-divorce/ar-AAhD9TS?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UP97DHP

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These Small Hours, These Little Wonders

6/24/2016

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It's been five days since my daughter and grandchildren left to return home to Los Angeles.

I still haven't gotten around to putting away the toys,

...and the never-deflating Dollar Tree balloons we bought for the birthday party last Sunday (see post from 6/20/2016) still float randomly about the house, up and down the stairs and from room to room.

Tom says they look like some kind of space alien pods.

They kind of do.

Especially when they're moving to and fro, oh so slowly.

Still I haven't felt like disposing of them yet.

I did remove the little post-it note squares that I stuck on the piano keys (and on the corresponding little fingers) to teach my granddaughter "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".

On the other hand I expect the work of art below will remain stuck on our refrigerator door indefinitely,

...as a memento of one fun morning we spent at Coffee Time (see post from 10/28/2014) where the girls made a little friend,

...and one of my friends from the Posse brought stickers and paper and had the children pick out stickers and paste them onto the page and give each sticker character a name which my friend then wrote down. The children were captivated by the activity.

As well as by my friend.

But aside from the couple of standard left-behind items, a sock, a little necklace,
a pink pony tail twisty, those are the only material reminders I have of my little granddaughters who will have grown so much, as they always do between visits, the next time I see them.
But the hours we have with them, too few and far between, are always times of delight and wonder for Tom and I.

Helping in the garden.

Helping Grandpa peel the corn.

Father's Day breakfast

We wonder: Were our children at that age such little bundles of non-stop energy?

Schiller Park in German Village.

Were they as chatty? As disarmingly cute?

Lunch at Panera with Uncle Tommy,

...and in German Village with Uncle Tommy.

Were they as enchanted by the common little everyday objects, still so new to them?

But of course they were.

As all children are.

Tommy and Tom

4 Comments

Sitting Down To Stand Up

6/23/2016

1 Comment

     At long last some backbone!
     At long last some cojones!
     Yesterday just before noon a group of Democratic congressmen and women led by Georgia Representative and civil rights leader John Lewis cried "enough already!" and began a 1960's-style sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives to demand a House vote on banning persons on the "no fly" list from buying guns.

Defying Speaker Paul Ryan, over 170 Democrats from the House and the Senate have since joined the sit-in, and though their protest has brought all legislative business to a halt they've declared that they will not move until a gun-control bill is brought to the floor.
21 hours later as I write this they continue to sit in protest.

“I am prepared to stay here until hell freezes over,’’ said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

And I'm so excited I'm ready to jump out of my fleece!
Because after so many years of believing that the primary concern of every member of Congress was the advancement their own career, I'm suddenly enkindled with a spark of hope that among those we've elected to be our voice there are some who actually care; because those with the power to do something about the lethal epidemic of gun violence raging across our country are - glory hallelujah! - doing something!

Rep, G.K. Butterfield, Chairman of The Congressional Black Caucus, said “Write this date down — June 22. It’s the beginning of a movement, This is just the beginning.’’

From your lips to God's ears, Representative Butterfield; may your act of civil disobedience be just the beginning of a movement that sets this country on fire to stop gun violence.

So, does anyone want to go sit-in on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse?

I'll bring snacks and posters.

References:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/politics/john-lewis-sit-in-gun-violence/index.html

2. http://www.11alive.com/news/local/john-lewis-holds-sit-in-on-house-floor/252394135

3. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/politics/john-lewis-sit-in-gun-violence/index.html

4. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/house-democrats-sit-in-over-gun-legislation-shows-no-signs-of-stopping/ar-AAhtdIZ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UP97DHP

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The Children's Village

6/22/2016

2 Comments

...Continued from yesterday:
Last February Tom and I spent a few days at the Berlin Resort in Berlin , Ohio,

...located in the heart of Amish Country (see post from 2/27/2016).

Among the many charms of this family-friendly hotel we discovered an enchanting miniature village on the grounds,

...that made us long to return there with our grand children as we envisioned their delight in this imaginary child-sized town.

And so last week while our daughter and granddaughters were in town we planned a one-night trip to the Berlin Resort.
We left on Thursday afternoon for the lovely 2-hour drive from Columbus to Berlin,

...through small towns and the rolling farmland of Holmes County.

By the time we arrived at the Berlin Resort the clouds were hanging low in the heavens*,

...and rain was in the forecast,

...so we quickly checked in,

...then hurried outside to beat the rain, which, happily, we did.
We did a turn around the grounds,

...stopping to play at the gazebo,

...have a look at the koi pond,

...and sit in the Adirondack chairs.

..all of which activities we enjoyed, but which were only a prelude to the main attraction:

The Children's Village.

My granddaughters were totally captivated by the miniature make-believe businesses, each of which was a playhouse,

...including a pet shop with stuffed animals,

...a dance studio,

...a school house

...a grocery store,

...a theater that showed real movies.

...a church,

...and a beautiful playground.

When dinner time arrived it was no small feat convincing the children that it was time to leave the village.

For dinner we drove into town to The Farmstead, one of the several Amish restaurants in the area.

...where we partook of the copious buffet,

...though the children were less interested in the food than the scenery outside the restaurant.

After dinner the children wanted to return to the village, but moments after we arrived back at the hotel the heavens, as they'd been promising all afternoon, finally opened with a downpour so we made do with a swim in the pool then an exploratory expedition up and down the halls of the hotel, during the course of which we discovered a door inexplicably decked out in Christmas decorations which enthralled my granddaughter,

...who kept wanting to go back and look at the Christmas Door.

The rain finally stopped, and from our hotel room we could see the Children's Village lit up for the evening. The children lobbied to go see the little city lights.

So we did. And, to our happy surprise, the interior of each building lit up when the door was opened to facilitate night-time playing.

"My dreams have come true!" proclaimed my 5-year-old granddaughter.
Mine, too, thought I.

*To all you Edgar Allen Poe aficionados: yes, I did filch that metaphor from the opening line of "The Fall Of The House Of Usher".

2 Comments

Party Time again

6/20/2016

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...Continued from yesterday:
The day after my daughter and two granddaughters arrived from Los Angeles we threw a joint 3rd birthday for my youngest granddaughter,

...and **th birthday party for Tom, here rolling out the dough for the party strombolis,

...which he topped with ham and cheese then rolled up jelly-roll style,

...while I worked on the stuffed mushrooms.

As we planned for about 25 kids and grown-up guests, I aimed for a kid/grown-up fusion menu, including a few repeats of some of the dished I'd made for Anusha's shower a month earlier. (See post from 5/18/2016).

The Joint Birthday Party Menu:
         Ham and cheese stromboli
         Macaroni and cheese
         Chicago-style hot dogs (grilled hot dogs topped with tomatoes, onions, marinated peppers, relish, celery seed, and a pickle spear)

   Tater tots
Stuffed mushrooms
     Pork roast in wine sauce
     Green beans almondine

     Guacamole and chips
     Veggies and dip
     Strawberries
     Blueberry shooters

     Peanut blossom cookies
     Blueberry bars
     Vegetable straws
     Potato chips

Cream-filled chocolate cupcakes, and, of course, birthday cake.

As always, on the day of the party the house was a-flutter with preparations but, also as always, many hands made the job light. (Or at least more fun).

Helping Auntie Anusha ice the cupcakes.

At 3 o'clock the guests began arriving.

They came,

...they noshed,

...they played,

...sang "Happy Birthday",

(and requested a piece of cake with a flower, of course),

...they caught up on news and reminisced old times.

...and then they said good-bye.

And we zonked for a while,

...then dug into the left-overs, of course. ;)

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A Visit From The Kids*

6/19/2016

3 Comments

'Twas the 11th of June, and all through the house,
Grammie Patti and Grandpa Tom were skittering around like a couple of mouses.

Grammie had made her lists,

...and Grandpa had hauled over to the Dollar Tree to pick up a batch of wonderful one-dollar balloons,

...in preparation for a birthday party the following afternoon.

Grandpa let fly the balloons all through the house,

...as a surprise to greet a couple of soon-to-be arriving little mouses.

The toys and books were out,

...and the places were set at the table with care,

...in hopes that our grand babies soon would be there.

...which they were. But a little late.

But no problem, we waited at the gate with all the other folks waiting for someone: a relative, a friend, a business associate, a mate.

They watched so intently, their necks were all craned, as they scanned the great crowds of the just-now deplaned.

Their faces, how they shown, their eyes, how they sparkled, when the loved one they awaited finally disembarkled!

But the best moment of all, that makes your heart soar,

... is when you spot your own dear ones coming through that big door.

We rounded up the luggage a quick as were were able,

And soon we were home, Tommy arrived, and we were all sitting just like happy old times,

...around the dinner table.

After dinner the little ones dove into the play clothes,

...and the toys, and went straight to their work.

then they joined me with mine.

And I heard them exclaim 'ere I turned out the light, "Grammie, tell us a story!"
What a wonderful night.

*With apologies to Clement C. Moore and all decent poets.

3 Comments

The Christian Dilemma

6/16/2016

4 Comments

   I don't believe that all Christians favor discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community. In fact I'm willing to believe that individually, most Christians favor LGBTQ equality under the law, including but not limited to employment rights, the right to same-sex marriage, the right to purchase the services of a baker or photographer, the right to participate in Girl and Boy Scouting, the right to use the public restroom one is comfortable with, the right to be seen in public with one's loved one, and the right to peace and privacy in one's personal life.
    But those who oppose certain basic human rights for LGBTQ's, those mongers of fear, hatred and bigotry who are blind to the self-evident truth that all persons are created equal, invariably identify as Christian and support their small-minded prejudice with their belief that in their disapproval, harassment and/or persecution of LGBTQ's they are in fact carrying out God's will, and they're likely to back up their self-righteous anti-gay stand with "The Bible says", "The Church says", or "God says".
   Then last week gay-hate collided with ISIS-flavored mental psychosis and an assault rifle and left one hundred people dead, thousands more grieving, our nation traumatized, and anti-gay rights Christians in a dilemma.
     The Thoughts And Prayers crowd is having problems verbalizing how exactly they stand in solidarity with the people whom up until this point they've berated and called followers of a morally corrupt lifestyle, people whose very existence they've condemned.   These self-proclaimed Christians are now tripping all over their tongues trying to say something compassionate and caring without sounding like blatant hypocrites.
   Some, like most Catholic Bishops in the U.S., have expressed condolences for the people of Orlando without specifically mentioning the LGBTQ community. The Reverend James Martin, editor of the Catholic magazine America called out the American Bishops for treating LGBTQ's as if they were invisible in this tragedy and called for the Bishops to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community at this time.
    But how can the Catholic Bishops now stand in solidarity with a group that they've always stood against?
         Uber-Christian homophobe Ted Cruz’s rather clever verbal tactic was to deflect his LGBTQ problem by pointing a finger at the Democrats and challenging them to show their support for gays by cracking down on – what else? – Radical Islam, while Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who fought tooth and nail against the Federal mandate legalizing same-sex marriage in Florida, stumbled and stuttered her way through an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, insisting that her now vocal public support of the Orlando LGBTQ community was not rank two-facedness, that in fighting against same-sex marriage she was merely upholding up the state constitution. As opposed, obviously, to the United States Constitution.
      The lamest effort of all to semantically piece together a right-sounding response to the Orlando murders from an anti-LGBTQ rights Christian came from conservative talk-show host Glen Beck who proclaimed that Jesus loved everyone, that true Christians love everyone, that nowhere does it say in the Bible that people should be rounded up and shot – but then had to admit that well, okay, it does in fact say in the Book of Leviticus that homosexuals shall be stoned…and he never finished that thought, but continued to insist that real Christians, like Jesus, love everybody.
      And so it appears to be true at this moment. But will that kind of Christian still stand up for the members of the LGBTQ community when they’re not being slaughtered?

"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24: 2,15)

References:

1. https://www.facebook.com/FrJamesMartin/videos

2. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/politics/pam-bondi-anderson-cooper-gay-rights-orlando/index.html

3. http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-statement-orlando-shooting-2016-6

4 Comments

A Moment Of Silence, A Tower Of Babble

6/14/2016

0 Comments

   Kalamazoo, Michigan, 2/20/2016,
     Colorado Springs, Colorado, 11/27/2015,
     Roseburg, Oregon, 10/01/2015
   Charleston, South Carolina, 6/17/2015,
     Seattle, Washington, 6/07/2014,
     Isla Vista, California, 5/23/2014,
     Newtown, Connecticut, 12/14/2012,
     Oak Creek, Wisconsin, 8/5/2012,
     Aurora, Colorado, 7/20/2012,
     Seattle Washington, 5/30/2012,
     Virginia Tech, 4/16/2007,
     Columbine, Colorado, 4/20/1999,
     New York City, the summer of 1976,
     Northern California in the late 1960's and early 1970's,
      and The University of Texas at Austin, 8/1/1966, where a devout Catholic Eagle Scout decorated Marine veteran gunned down 46 people, killing 15 and wounding 31.
      My point is that all of the above mass murders were committed by non-Muslims. Which means that the anti-Muslim bombast of Donald Trump is not only hateful bigotry, it's stupid. If there were not one Muslim in the United States this country would still be the mass-murder capital of the world.
     Mass shootings: There were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker, which catalogues such incidents. A mass shooting is defined as a single shooting incident which kills or injures four or more people, including the assailant.   Source: The Mass Shooting Tracker.
      How many of us are sick to death of blood baths followed by knee-jerk moments of silence by hypocritical, jelly-spined members of Congress who bow their heads in pious mock sentiment for the dead then babble on about Radical Islam and every other pretext for the culture of gun violence in this country while they quake in their shoes and bow on bent knee to the gun lobby?
      When will our law-makers stop the babble, turn all those thoughts and prayers into action on sensible gun control, grow back bones and quit hiding behind the Second Amendment as cover for their fear of the NRA?   Except for those who line their pockets by the sale of weapons of mass murder, is there any sane, decent American who really believes that the intent of the Founding Fathers would be defiled by a ban on the sale of assault rifles?
       And in the end, what does it matter if a mass shooter is a Radical Islamic terrorist, A Radical Islamic homophobic terrorist, a white supremacist terrorist, an anti-abortion terrorist, an anti-establishment terrorist, a Sikh-hating terrorist, a wife-hating terrorist, a mother-hating terrorist, a teen-aged social outcast terrorist, or a free-floating, unassociated terrorist?
       Because in the end all the meaningless babble and all the moments of silence in the universe won't bring back the dead or take away the grief of the living.

References:
1.https://www.google.com/search?site=webhp&q=how+many+mass+shootings+per+year+in+us&oq=\how+many+mass+per+year+in+the+US&gs_l=serp.1.0.0i22i30.13593.31183.0.33117.33.32.0.0.0.0.209.3774.5j

2. https://www.massshootingtracker.org/data

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