Just a field down the road from me. It's still beautiful, even in October.
But it is a little exotic! I’ve only been here a couple days so far, but it’s already clear to me that life in rural West Virginia is very different from life in suburban Richmond, Virginia. Too many of us fail to appreciate the internal diversity in this vast land of ours, and when we do, we tend to indulge in negative stereotypes. My experience in life has shown us how wrong those can be.
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Today was the first day of the Life is good Festival, and it was a lot of fun. Life is Good founders Bert and John Jacobs announced from the stage that the festival had exceeded last year’s totals and is close to reaching the goal of $1 million to help children in crisis. But close isn’t good enough. Perhaps you can help with a donation? You can learn more about the cause and make a donation on this page. You can also just come out to the festival!
(This entry was originally written on March 8, 2011. It is only now that I have finished the editing and gotten it posted.)
It’s Mardi Gras today, Fat Tuesday in English, though that lacks a certain je ne sais quois that makes it interesting. It’s the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the 40 days of atonement, fasting and sacrifice to honor the the great sacrifice made by Jesus. Some pretty heavy stuff, in fact. Back in the day when people took Lent really seriously, Lent was a was an intense season. People didn’t just give up chocolate for 40 days or abstain from meat on Fridays by ordering a large mushroom pizza. They might entirely abstain from food and drink for days, pray for hours on end or whip themselves with leather. In such austere times, Mardi Gras was the last opportunity committ all the sins you’d neglected since the end of Lent the year before, an opportunity to really go wild. Quite a few cities in the United States have some sort of Mardi Gras festivities, but New Orleans is first among them. No city’s celebrations are bigger or better.
Another thing New Orleans is known for is Jazz. It is called the Birthplace of Jazz for good reason. Like everywhere else in America, the area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, then colonized by the French, ceded to the Spanish as the result of war, returned to the French, and then sold to the Americans as part of the Louisiana purchase. Throughout all of this the mighty Mississippi took goods from the northern part of the continent to the Gulf of Mexico, and goods from all parts of the world in the other direction. Though in the heart of the South, New Orleans had both slaves and free blacks that lived there or that passed through regularly. They played drums and sang, free of the prohibitions against these things in most other parts of the South. This was the fertile, culturally diverse environment that allowed for the germination of the a musical genre we now know as Jazz. It could only have happened there.
The George H. Buck, Jr. Foundation and the Jazzology group of record labels in New Orleans were founded to preserve the heritage of Jazz and to foster its continued development. They have become an essential part of the New Orleans cultural landscape, preserving not only New Orleans Jazz, but Jazz and related genres in all their variety. Some of the new releases are well worth checking out.
Discover history at our National Parks
I learned a lot about our nation’s history and the natural world this way, it seems like as much as I did in school. I don’t remember being taught about Booker T. Washington before college. That’s not to say I wasn’t, but I don’t remember it like I do the visit to his birthplace. We must have learned about Thomas Jefferson, but I don’t remember that, either and my virtual obsession with him sprang out of a family visit to Monticello. While visiting the Smoky Mountains I was first exposed the the tragedy of the Native Americans and the horrors of incidents like the Trail of Tears. Most of these parks had not entry fee, paid for entirely with tax dollars. That meant that we could and would, explore something on on a whim. If it was a rainy day and we had planned to do something outside, we could tour a historic mansion, instead. In addition to the National Parks and Historic Places, there was a whole other network of state parks and sites operated by non-profits that were also free.
More recently an increasing percentage of these sites have imposed an entry fee. People want low taxes, budgets are small, and government at all levels from local to national is practicing austerity. Fee for service became a model for a lot of what government does in the 1980s, and it has been that way since. It makes sense on a certain level. Why should those of who never have any intention of visiting one of these sites pay for their upkeep and for providing services there? In fact, these properties are part of our national heritage. We, as a people, have decided that these places are an important part of our history and they need to be preserved. They are monuments that need to be visible to our fellow citizens and the world to remind us of our common heritage and who we are as a people. The White House has offered to cut $105 million from the budget of the National Park Service, and the Republican’s want more.
Up to 21 inches expected, from Boston.com
I have never so much wanted weather forecasters to be wrong. Forecasts are for as much as 18″ of snow between what started this morning and tomorrow! This, added to the more than 60 inches we’ve already had this winter, are significantly above average, according to Boston.com:
Bay State residents have at least 60.3 reasons to be sick of the snow. After last week’s storm, a total of 60.3 inches of snow for the season had been recorded at Logan International Airport, including 38.3 in January alone.
The season total so far is more than the season average of 41.8 and the total last year of 35.7. The record is 102.8 inches, in 1995-1996. January 2011 has been Boston’s third-snowiest January and the sixth snowiest month ever, just behind March 1993.
I always have a soft spot for the mail carrier, but it’s not what you might think. It’s not the uniform, and I tend of become obsessed with the letter carrier regardless of race, sex, religion, height, weight, sexual preference, etc. I like mail carriers because I think of them as real, personal agents of communication that transcends miles and oceans. They physically bring the things our friends and loved ones have written or simply touched to us no matter where we are.
Of course, they bring bills and junk, too. But they don’t forward your junk mail from place to place to place. They do forward personal mail. A letter from my parents once followed me through four countries when I was traveling in Europe and not staying long anywhere, finally catching up to me on my last stop, all with a regular air mail stamp. They forward bills too, but bills are a fact of life. Better they reach you than go unpaid until a collection agency knocks.
Yes, I am a big fan of the United States Postal Service. I always have been. I’ve moved around a lot in my life and the Post Office has always been extraordinary at making sure my letters reach me. For years I’ve done my Christmas shopping online and they get my gifts to my family every year. I have sustained some of my deepest and most important relationships with the aid of real mail delivered by postal carriers. Sure they are not perfect. Things have been delayed, lost or damaged, but its been rare, extraordinarily rare given the number of pieces that have passed through the USPS to and from me and the number of pieces they handle in general. Check out their stats. There you’ll find out things like the fact that the USPS processes 24 million pieces of mail each hour, on average.
Petition: Tell Congress: Protect Workers, NOT Millionaires!
Senator Scott Brown made a fiery speech a couple of days ago as he blocked the Senate from considering an extension of unemployment benefits. He said that first we need to find a way to pay for those benefits without raising the deficit. At last report the unemployment rate in this country stands at 9.7% and Brown wants to put their ability to buy groceries, pay their bills, mortgage or rent payments in doubt while Congress turns its attention to the deficit.
I believe that Washington has finally turned its attention to the deficit in earnest, and that Brown’s theatrics are not necessary. The report that bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has just been released provides outstanding recommendations for debt reduction. Holding the unemployed hostage during the holiday season is little more than political theater. Brown needed an issue to distinguish himself on, and he chose this. Nice, Senator! Pick on the unemployed. They’re so busy job hunting they won’t be paying much attention!
November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month. In nearly all medical emergencies the first responder is usually witness or bystander who just happens to be there. Do you know what to do when someone has a seizure? Most people will witness one at some point, and more than you might think will have one or more during their lives. So learn what you need to know and Get Seizure Smart!
Find more videos like this on Epilepsy Foundation
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When I was young I had fantasies of being a rock star, but I was a failure in guitar lessons and couldn’t really hold a tune, so that didn’t really work out. But I’ve stayed pretty obsessed with music. I like to be surrounded by it, and in my mind my life is accompanied by a soundtrack. Somehow music makes even the darkest situation bearable.
Yes, life is good when there is music around and life was great this weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday a the Life is Good Festival in Canton, MA and I heard some amazing artists.
The festival raises money for the Life is Good Foundation to help kids overcome life-threatening challenges such as violence, illness and extreme poverty. Pretty much everything anyone did on the festival grounds those two days somehow contributed to the work of the foundation. Even if you bought a beer and threw a dollar into the tip jar, the proceeds and the tip went to the Foundation. An awful lot of the work that had to be done those days was done by volunteers. Some of them were employees of Life is Good giving a little extra time, others, like me, did not and were just volunteering their time.
For several months I’ve been working to raise funds for the Life is Good Kids Foundation to support children struggling to overcome life-threatening challenges. I pledged to raise $1000 and have successfully met that goal, even slightly exceeded it. Though I’ve not raised it to $1500 and there is still time to help, I thought it a good time to publicly acknowledge those who’ve helped me so far! The names below are listed according to the order in which I received their donations. Those who were the earliest to support me at at the top, and it continues on through the most recent.
I hope all of you on this list know how much this means to me. Thank you for supporting a good cause, but thank you, also, for responding so generously to my request. Continue reading