Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
five
my beautiful boy is five today.five years ago today i was holding my water baby unable to sleep, afraid i would miss a second of his content, musical sighs.
being five is absolutely magic.
happiest birthday wishes to you.
love,
aubrey
Saturday, September 13, 2008
ready, set, go...............
we are off bright and early to san diego! hurrah!wish us luck (we might hit the slots in vegas), good weather, quiet car rides, and most of all wish xavier a very, very happy 5th birthday!!
Friday, September 12, 2008
raise your voices
another letter i received that i thought was important enough to spread the message. please visit their blog and make your voice heard. also, please see my new sidebar of links titled do something!
hundreds of thousands of woman all speaking out together in the name of change is breathtaking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello there--
Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,
We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since
the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the
Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed
mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce on the part of a
pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of
becoming fact.
Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin
and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and
for our present or future daughters.
To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control,
the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack
of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the
planet.
We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a
mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a
rash, incompetent, and altogether devastating choice for Vice President. Ms.
Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the
accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely
fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.
First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not
demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed
that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.
Therefore, we invite you to reply here
with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this
country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our
nation.
Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of
residence.
We will post your responses on a blog called 'Women Against Sarah
Palin,' which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your
reply at your earliest convenience. The greater the volume of
responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.
Thank you for your time and action.
VIVA!
Sincerely,
Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com
hundreds of thousands of woman all speaking out together in the name of change is breathtaking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello there--
Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,
We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since
the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the
Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed
mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce on the part of a
pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of
becoming fact.
Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin
and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and
for our present or future daughters.
To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control,
the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack
of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the
planet.
We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a
mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a
rash, incompetent, and altogether devastating choice for Vice President. Ms.
Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the
accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely
fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.
First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not
demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed
that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.
Therefore, we invite you to reply here
with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this
country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our
nation.
Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of
residence.
We will post your responses on a blog called 'Women Against Sarah
Palin,' which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your
reply at your earliest convenience. The greater the volume of
responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.
Thank you for your time and action.
VIVA!
Sincerely,
Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com
drill, drill, drill
the following is a letter that was sent to me by email. i sent it to as many woman as i could but wanted to share this on my blog as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drill, Drill, Drill
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
like the sands in an hourglass....
30 minutes of high energy, nonstop improvisational dancing.
jumping on the tramp with all 793 balls from our house.
talking about knitting and how much yarn is needed for certain projects.
map investigation.
discussion about casinos and gambling.
seeing pictures of las vegas at night.
watching videos of the blue man group.
going outside and starting our own blue man group except we have cooler names, like,
the xaviers, the cool brothers, and the tooty dinosaurs.
reading all about dark matter, mass, and gravitational pull.
learning to count by fives.
playing with the legos to make our own version of star wars 5000.
and all this happened in one afternoon.
jumping on the tramp with all 793 balls from our house.
talking about knitting and how much yarn is needed for certain projects.
map investigation.
discussion about casinos and gambling.
seeing pictures of las vegas at night.
watching videos of the blue man group.
going outside and starting our own blue man group except we have cooler names, like,
the xaviers, the cool brothers, and the tooty dinosaurs.
reading all about dark matter, mass, and gravitational pull.
learning to count by fives.
playing with the legos to make our own version of star wars 5000.
and all this happened in one afternoon.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
two things
1. there is currently a cricket living in my bedroom closet. it is like i am sleeping outside when i really am sleeping inside. i am wondering what there is to eat for a cricket in my closet.
maybe i don't want to know.
2. we are leaving for sunny san diego in FIVE sleeps! woohooo! we are all so excited we are gonna pee our pants.
maybe i don't want to know.
2. we are leaving for sunny san diego in FIVE sleeps! woohooo! we are all so excited we are gonna pee our pants.
Friday, September 5, 2008
at the park
we discovered a new secret place in our neighborhood park. a shaded woody grove running along the stream. a place to dodge in and out of the tree limbs. a place to pick up the green slime in the water and wonder about it.
because we were caught up in the newness of our discovery i had almost forgot that i had left the stroller with all of our essentials at the start of the path, out of sight. while walking back to retrieve it i passed a young teenage boy with his hood pulled up tight, head down. i immediately felt a little panicked. sadly, my first thought was this kid must be up to no good. my reality doesn't often come face to face with teenagers, so, my reaction was immediately fear. my fear was shattered the instant we met eyes and he gave me a small, shy smile. i smiled back, glad to see that he seemed happy.
later, while walking with the kids to the playground we passed the same boy sitting in a circle with his friends on the bank of the river. they were talking passionately, laughing.
seeing this circle of friends made me flash back to my memories of sitting amongst my best friends. i smile while remembering the idiotic and immature, yet thoroughly outrageous fun we'd have. these friends will always remain as the roots of my spirit, my foundation in which i have been able to grow from.
looking back though i don't remember interacting with many adults other than teachers or parents. our existence was completely separate from our community save those few tolerated exchanges. it was just understood that you weren't really welcome or understood by anyone other than your own. this never really bothered me at the time, it was just the way things were.
that gets me back to my story of this young man. a little while later into our park adventure i saw that those same friends had gotten busted by the cops. they were being scolded and i overheard the words truancy, office, and parents. the teenagers all had their heads down. they were once again getting the message, you are not welcome here, nailed into their skulls.
my heart sank. i desperately wanted to meet their eyes, to let them know not all adults consider them troublemakers and want them rounded up in schools to keep a heavy eye on their every move.
it struck me then how sad it is that i never see nor interact with any teenagers in my life. even more sad that i have bought into the popular belief that teenagers should be hidden from society because they don't belong. how is it that i so strongly believe with all of who i am that children shouldn't be pushed away into schools but rather that they belong in the heart of our community, yet i had never thought about teenagers being a part of this discriminated population of children. when my children grow to become teenagers won't i want them to seen by their community as an integral and vital piece of the pie instead of being shut out?
i would never blame those kids for wanting to break free from the grip of bully adults even for a few moments and even at the cost of severe punishment. they need and deserve privacy and respect just like the rest of us demand. teenagers have it especially hard since they are stuck between childhood and adulthood. not old enough to be on their own completely while still needing the love and support of family and community, yet growing into this more adult mind and self awareness that truly thrives on autonomy.
that is such an unfair spot to be stuck in.
our society's current stance is to control these young people and give them absolutely no choice to the contrary. those that try to break free from this controlling hand are considered unruly and to be troublemakers. so the individuals that are fighting for choice over their own lives fuel the popular belief to tighten the iron grip of control even more and thus the ugly cycle goes round and round.
what about painting this picture differently? what if we instead welcomed children and teenagers alike with open arms into our communities? what if our town centers, parks, and streets were buzzing with youthful energy and people of all ages were free to mingle and learn from one another without fear of being hounded down? what if we loosened the grip of control on these young minds and instead adopted the beliefs of trust and loving guidance?
to some it may sound like a idealistic pipedream.
to me, it sounds beautiful.
and this mind shift of mine is all thanks to the young man at the park.
thanks to him i will never look at teenagers the same way again.
because we were caught up in the newness of our discovery i had almost forgot that i had left the stroller with all of our essentials at the start of the path, out of sight. while walking back to retrieve it i passed a young teenage boy with his hood pulled up tight, head down. i immediately felt a little panicked. sadly, my first thought was this kid must be up to no good. my reality doesn't often come face to face with teenagers, so, my reaction was immediately fear. my fear was shattered the instant we met eyes and he gave me a small, shy smile. i smiled back, glad to see that he seemed happy.
later, while walking with the kids to the playground we passed the same boy sitting in a circle with his friends on the bank of the river. they were talking passionately, laughing.
seeing this circle of friends made me flash back to my memories of sitting amongst my best friends. i smile while remembering the idiotic and immature, yet thoroughly outrageous fun we'd have. these friends will always remain as the roots of my spirit, my foundation in which i have been able to grow from.
looking back though i don't remember interacting with many adults other than teachers or parents. our existence was completely separate from our community save those few tolerated exchanges. it was just understood that you weren't really welcome or understood by anyone other than your own. this never really bothered me at the time, it was just the way things were.
that gets me back to my story of this young man. a little while later into our park adventure i saw that those same friends had gotten busted by the cops. they were being scolded and i overheard the words truancy, office, and parents. the teenagers all had their heads down. they were once again getting the message, you are not welcome here, nailed into their skulls.
my heart sank. i desperately wanted to meet their eyes, to let them know not all adults consider them troublemakers and want them rounded up in schools to keep a heavy eye on their every move.
it struck me then how sad it is that i never see nor interact with any teenagers in my life. even more sad that i have bought into the popular belief that teenagers should be hidden from society because they don't belong. how is it that i so strongly believe with all of who i am that children shouldn't be pushed away into schools but rather that they belong in the heart of our community, yet i had never thought about teenagers being a part of this discriminated population of children. when my children grow to become teenagers won't i want them to seen by their community as an integral and vital piece of the pie instead of being shut out?
i would never blame those kids for wanting to break free from the grip of bully adults even for a few moments and even at the cost of severe punishment. they need and deserve privacy and respect just like the rest of us demand. teenagers have it especially hard since they are stuck between childhood and adulthood. not old enough to be on their own completely while still needing the love and support of family and community, yet growing into this more adult mind and self awareness that truly thrives on autonomy.
that is such an unfair spot to be stuck in.
our society's current stance is to control these young people and give them absolutely no choice to the contrary. those that try to break free from this controlling hand are considered unruly and to be troublemakers. so the individuals that are fighting for choice over their own lives fuel the popular belief to tighten the iron grip of control even more and thus the ugly cycle goes round and round.
what about painting this picture differently? what if we instead welcomed children and teenagers alike with open arms into our communities? what if our town centers, parks, and streets were buzzing with youthful energy and people of all ages were free to mingle and learn from one another without fear of being hounded down? what if we loosened the grip of control on these young minds and instead adopted the beliefs of trust and loving guidance?
to some it may sound like a idealistic pipedream.
to me, it sounds beautiful.
and this mind shift of mine is all thanks to the young man at the park.
thanks to him i will never look at teenagers the same way again.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
on politics
i can't seem to pull myself away from the madness of the political climate right now. i have listened, read, and thought a lot about sarah palin and why exactly i'm even thinking about this woman.....i'm at a loss.
i watched her speech last night at the GOP convention and frankly, i was absolutely horrified. she talked nothing about her qualifications, experience, or how she plans to help americans. not a word about the real issues facing our country were uttered. all i heard was drill now! and more nuclear reactors! and, oh yeah, mean spirited, untrue attacks on barack obama. i was and still am sick to my stomach.
what i appreciate about obama is that he feeds our belief that humanity is overwhelmingly good and kind, that we are all connected by the common desires of freedom, safety, and happiness. what i heard last night was the fuel for fear.
i felt more hopeful after reading this. it's smart, well thought out, and anti-dramatic.
i also felt more hopeful after visiting the official barack obama store and purchasing t-shirts and a yard sign. i like to think that i am turning this frustration i am feeling and directing it to something positive, something that will help.
and because john stewart is funny, i watched this. he hits the nail on the head every time.
i watched her speech last night at the GOP convention and frankly, i was absolutely horrified. she talked nothing about her qualifications, experience, or how she plans to help americans. not a word about the real issues facing our country were uttered. all i heard was drill now! and more nuclear reactors! and, oh yeah, mean spirited, untrue attacks on barack obama. i was and still am sick to my stomach.
what i appreciate about obama is that he feeds our belief that humanity is overwhelmingly good and kind, that we are all connected by the common desires of freedom, safety, and happiness. what i heard last night was the fuel for fear.
i felt more hopeful after reading this. it's smart, well thought out, and anti-dramatic.
i also felt more hopeful after visiting the official barack obama store and purchasing t-shirts and a yard sign. i like to think that i am turning this frustration i am feeling and directing it to something positive, something that will help.
and because john stewart is funny, i watched this. he hits the nail on the head every time.
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