ruminations (a true mixed bag)

*At the beginning of the Puddlejumper on the Orange City end is a saddle club/stables. The horses -- all brown -- were off in the distance tonight. I'd say they were chestnut mares. Of course, I have no idea whether they were mares at all. But they were definitely chestnut-colored. The word 'chestnut' automatically associates with Laura Ingalls Wilder in my mind. She called her hair chestnut brown. My sister also has brown hair, so I imagine calling hers chestnut, too, even though it's not really. We played 'olden days' a lot when we were little. She would be Laura Ingalls because she was younger and had brown hair. I had to be Mary because I was older and had blond hair. I didn't really enjoy listening to the books or reading them and I hated the shows, but I loved just playing olden days. That's a whole 'nother book.

*A friend today talked about heritages and homelands. Where am I from? Part of me says, "Duh, you're from Grandma's pasture." My grandparents own a ... I guess you'd kind of call it a hobby farm in Northwestern Minnesota. They don't grow anything or keep any farm animals anymore, but they have a good deal of rolling pastureland. What makes it even more spectacular is that it's at the end of the rolls -- someone once told me one of their hills was documented as the last significant one before the Great Flatness of the Dakotas. I'd believe it.

We didn't visit Grandma's that often, maybe twice a year tops. So I haven't even been to the pasture all that many times. But for all of us kids it was mysteriously sacred. Fascinating. Alluring. Rolling prairies. Nothing to see but maybe another farmhouse. A couple of cows. So serene. If you followed the right paths, you'd come to a good-sized pond. You really do have to follow the tire tracks, though. I've never been able to find the pond without them, no matter how hard I try.

I don't know why I feel that's where I'm from. Maybe because that was homeland (and is) for over a century to my mother's family. Sometimes I feel I'm from the river bluffs of La Crosse, even though I don't even remember them from when we lived there. But where I am really from is the small-town sophistication of Northfield, Minnesota. Truly, I believe, there are few other places in the country quite like it. I love it and it makes me crazy. In ways I love it more now that I can take more of an outsider's view of it -- the cleanliness; the ultra-chic, ultra-expensive downtown; the carefully preserved natural beauties of trees and prairies; the above-average regard for education; the extensive historical settings and intact architecture; the liberals I grew up believing were next-thing to devil-worshippers. And yet, it seems, all the things I like about it are things that are not of relatively high value to my family -- they buy cheap, live in the country, watch history on PBS... Don't get me wrong. I love my family. It's just a strange observation. We aren't the stereotypical Northfielders.

*It's been a year now since graduation, and I've come to some reluctant conclusions: This, right now, where I'm at in life, is not what I want. In a nutshell. (Is the problem the circumstances or is the problem how I'm looking at them? We won't get into that mess right now.) Okay, what do I want, then? Okay, what do I want that I can have?

I've started actively looking at help wanted ads again, and it's a little frustrating. (Trying to stop exaggerating so much. It's a bad habit.) First of all, I'm looking in a limited area. Second, I'm looking for a job that very well might not exist. Third of all, even if it does exist, who knows when it will come open again, or if I could be deemed qualified for it.

And then I ask myself -- will a new job really make me happier? Yes and no. At the least, the readers of my current paper deserve better. They deserve someone who will get their hands wetter and hunker down and talk to them instead of observing them. They deserve what they had before, but that's just not an option right now. Sadly for them, the chances of them ever getting anything like that again are pretty much slim to none. That's how life goes, I guess.

Back to the topic at hand: what I want. I want to drive through the Yorkshire dales with Jim Herriot and stand on the hillside with him on a blustery winter night while he delivers a turned calf. I want to dance with Tristan Farnon and have a glass of sherry with Mrs. Pumphrey.

And I want to be Jane of Lantern Hill. And ride the train across Canada.

I want to shed this social anxiety and work up the courage to chat with strangers.

I want to be known and humored anyhow. I want to make enough money to buy a car that I own. One with the gearshift down in the console like a sports car -- but not own an actual sports car. I want to work in red pen. I want to weigh 30 pounds less. I want to see the thesis in a book on my own. I want to "discover" a great new band before anyone else does. I want to speak every language. Help my mom figure out how to make a successful cake from scratch. Get a cable modem. Make a plant grow instead of wither. Photograph small children. Be five years old. To know somehow some part of my life made a difference (these things you forget you knew before). Eat chocolate. Do algebra. Be looked for. Dust. Cook raw meat. Choose a political party. Pet dogs and touch people.

Those are all (in a way) small things, though. What do I want that's big?

*I finished "A Farewell to Arms." It was entertaining, yes, but... I wasn't all that impressed, to tell the truth. It was lacking in overall conflict. Yes, it's about wartime, but... it almost lacks direction. You don't even know where the characters want to go. They don't really even half a problem. And even when they do have one, they're not really that upset... I'm sure I've totally missed big things. I'm not denying that. But... yeah. I just wasn't overly impressed. Was it even worth reading? You know, I'm not altogether sure.

*The mayor of this town owns a chain of funeral homes. He has such a baby face. You can't help but imagine him as a little boy.

the sound of music

(is this a repeat? it seems likely...)

I look at people's Facebook profiles and Xanga profiles and anywhere profiles and they list all these favorite bands they have. Where are you all finding all these bands? Where do you find the music you like -- how do you discover it in the first place?

our "representative?"

We get many shocking press releases from the office of U.S. Representative Steve King.

"KING APPLAUDS DECISION TO GIVE AMERICANS ANOTHER CHANCE TO END BILINGUAL VOTING

Washington, D.C.— Following outrage from Members of Congress, citizen groups and constituents, the bill to renew certain controversial provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was pulled from the U.S. House voting calendar today, giving Members more time to respond to concerns before a vote by the full House.

The bill to renew the VRA, H.R. 9, was expected to go to the full House today; however, a debate over institutionalizing bilingual voting loomed over House leadership.

U.S. Congressman Steve King (IA-05) offered an amendment to the bill, which was denied by the House Rules Committee, the body that decides which amendments are to be made in order on the House floor. King’s amendment would prevent renewal of a provision of the bill which requires localities to produce multilingual voting ballots for twenty-five additional years."
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ia05_king/PRBiligualBallots062106.html

I can see the point of trying to save money on elections and wanting voters to ... or wanting voters who understand the issues in the first place, BUT, we've recently put tons of money into making voting equipment more accessible to those who arne't competent enough to connect the lines or fill in the bubble. If a Spanish-speaking voter is concerned about the issues and wants representation, then until (if ever) English is our national language, they should have that right. To make it fair to all minorities, it should probably be qualified that people speaking a particular language have to reach a certain percentage of American citizens in a given precinct.

This is also unbelievable:

"ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM REP. STEVE KING (AP)

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Washington-based Arab American public policy group is demanding an apology from an Iowa congressman for comments he made Saturday to delegates at the state Republican convention.

The Arab American Institute says Republican Steve King made disrespectful comments about a veteran White House correspondent when he discussed the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a U-S airstrike on June seventh.

King says that al-Zarqawi is now in hell, and if there are any virgins there they probably all look like 85-year-old Helen Thomas."

AP says (in 1987) that you give a man's full name first, then you refer to him by just his last name after that. Makes sense, right?

But women -- you refer to them by their full name first, then you refer to them as Miss, Ms. or Mrs. Such-and-Such. Does this sound mixed up to anyone else? (I'm pretty sure AP doesn't do this anymore, but it seems like someone else still does.)

She was much more adorable from the front, but hopefully you get the idea.

I don't understand... I just photograph.

Clearly this picture has aged now. But this tiny roadside chapel outside of Sioux Center is still picturesque.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprise move, a House panel voted Tuesday for a hike in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, which would be the first increase in a decade."

(body summary: But it's not going to pass the floor because of political and process confusion.)

... "When adjusted for inflation, the $5.15 per hour wage is the lowest it has been for 50 years, according to a study by Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank.

'"The minimum wage is lower than it has been at any time since 1956," said Miller, the top Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. "Congress' refusal to raise the minimum wage shows an utter disrespect for millions of Americans who work hard every day and still struggle to meet even the most basic needs."

"But Republicans counter that raising the wage would provoke inflation and lead to job losses, especially for young people just entering the job market.

"At $5.15 per hour, a worker who works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year earns $10,712 per year."
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-13-minimum-wage_x.htm

The man who wrote "The Ox-Cart Man" is the new U.S. poet laureate! (His name is Donald Hall.)

all I really need to know I read in the AP stylebook

New truths for today:

1."Do not follow an organization's full name with an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses." I am guilty of this.

2. "Amendments, ordinances, resolutions and rules are adopted or approved. Bills are passed. Laws are enacted."

3. "Air Force Base" should not be abbreviated in datelines, so they write in 1987. I'm pretty sure that got changed.

4. "Another is not a synonym for additional; it refers to an element that somehow duplicates a previously stated quantity."

5. April Fools' Day should have an apostrophe. I think I have advocated against it in the past.

6. "Legally, however, assault means simply to threaten violence, as in pointing a pistol at an individual without firing it."

7. "The phrase (average of) takes a plural verb in a construction such as: An average of 100 new jobs are created daily." I can feel this one both ways.

**It is a sad, sad thing to say that The Journalist's Bible is fallible -- or at least it was in 1987.

How would it feel to know 700,000 copies of your baby, the stylebook you created, are in print, and that it contains ERRORS? I wouldn't know how to live with myself. At least in the A section, there is not a standard number of spaces between entries. The entry for "association" unnecessarily begins with a capital letter.

And I found part of the "affect, effect" entry amusing:

"Affect, as a noun, is best avoided. It occasionally is used in psychology to describe an emotion, but there is no need for it in everyday language."

journalism, ethics, constitutional freedoms: you name it

Welcome, SIJ! :)

I work in a notorious heavily-republican county. One of our representatives was recently speaking to folks at a nursing home during a reception in his honor. One woman commented during a Q&A time about how upset she was that a school recently outlawed prayer in a graduation ceremony, and expressed outrage that baccalaureate services could not be held in school or on school time.

"It's a sad day when we have to make that separation," the representative replied. "I don't see anything wrong with being able to pray at graduation," I wrote that he wrote, adding that graduates were going out to a harsh world and needed all the help they could get, that faith needs to be part of our whole life.

The woman followed up by asking if he saw long-term plans to put God back into the schools. Vaguely, he replied: "I sense a change in this country... maybe it's not a good one."

Maybe it's just me that finds this a bit astounding (the representative). Yes, I'm a Christian, but the nation was founded on freedom of religion.

As a reporter, (had I a publisher who'd let me mention it any way about it), is this something one should make a big deal about? How would you address this statement? Would you ignore it because he's indulging the elderly, or would you print it?

Clarinet reeds will always make me think of the smell of listerine.

My clarinet case was opened today for the first time since my graduation day. After so long I've been half afraid it had cracked or corks and pads had deteriorated.

No problems, though. I slipped a new reed out of its plastic case. Reeds are picky things. The tip becomes almost paper-thin, and if it touches anything too abruptly it will chip and may not produce any sound anymore.

Even just wetting the reed can be an art. (It has to be wet to make noise.) The first part of assembling a seven-part clarinet is putting the reed in your mouth to soak. You have to open your mouth wide enough when you put the reed in that it won't hit your teeth. It needs to go far enough in so that teeth and tongue tip are not near the reed tip, but no so far that you risk bending it on the roof of your mouth.

Purchasing the reed in the first place is yet another matter. Each clarinetist has their favorite brand and size and refuses to suffer with anything else. (For me? Mitchell Lurie 4's, please. I can live with a 3.5 if I really have to. But don't give me any of this Van Doren or Rico crap.)

And after all that work, you might have a poor reed anyway. They're so fickle. The initially awful ones can age to perfection, but they might not.

Reeds taste like wood when fresh (and like listerine when sanitized). Then they taste like your mouth. A reed used or being used is constantly fussed with because mouth slime is building up on the face of it or drying up there.

Clarinet players are like little mothers constantly fussing about their helpless wooden children.

my name is not Asher Lev

Chaim Potok writes with passion.

His characters feel intense pain and the most mournful sadness and cry out to God and occasionally encounter pleasant happiness.

His characters must be perpetually exhausted just by living. But I envy them.

They are passionate. They are fervent about their love for the Rebbe and for spreading Hasidism and for keeping the commandments. Every move is purposeful. Life is drastic choices.

I want to write that I love Chaim Potok like a grandfather. I pick up his novels like a child eager to hear a story.

He must be a professor, I think, the way he writes so much about vocation -- vocare, you might say easily. And he just might be. His bio says he has a PhD in Philosophy.

I'm surprised it's not psychology. His stuff often deals with a tension between psychology and religion. Danny snuck into the library to read Freud. Danny used his psychology training to treat the girlfriend's cousin. Asher's mom went nuts. Asher's practically nuts himself. That makes me love them more.

The characters are all devoted Hasidic Jews. What's strange is that I feel they're deeply Christian when I'm reading them. Well, it's not really strange. But it's so easy to relate to them despite the key differences in our beliefs, and they have so much to teach me about my own faith.

I admire how cut and dried their lives are. "That's forbidden." This is how we do things. It causes both pain and freedom.

mistress of the house

My mom says the dog believes my dad is the smartest one in the house -- when she whines for something and begins her charades of "Look, my bowl is empty. Look, there is the bag of food," Mom tells her to go lay down and Dad will fill the dog food scoop.

I've lived with an animal for years and years, but it still takes a little time to remember how to do it when I visit her.

Example: I drive up. She's sitting in the yard and wants to come see me. However, she's managed to wind her grazing-rope-leash around a bucket of water and she's confined to a 10-square-foot area.

Example 2: Everyone is in bed, so I head downstairs to the guest room. The dog is also stretched out, snoozing on her fleecey bed. Not two minutes later as I enter the pitch-black bedroom, I hear a rustling behind me. She heard me digging in the jar of -- her favorite -- honey-roasted peanuts and she snapped into action. I throw her a few intermittently, show her my empty hands and say the magic words: "All gone!"

When you have a vacuum-on-legs, you don't have to worry about potato chip crumbs or loose popcorn kernels, or meaty gristle. Whenever the dog comes in from her grazing/surveying of the premises, she heads straight up to the kitchen to review the latest spills. (Deliberate spills in her presence must be preluded with the word "oops." When you use the word in other contexts, she still comes running.)

in good hands

The nurses down the street at the clinic rescued seven baby ducks separated from their mother which were found under two pouncing cats. (An eighth got run over by a car...)

fly me to the moon

This tree, located in Storm Lake, is the descendant of a seed that traveled to the moon with an American astronaut.