February 2006

I want to thank Bill Maher for the broadcast of his show, Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday. He is always interesting, funny and controversial. These are given attributes that I can depend on him to fulfill. The episode Friday really hit home for me more than usual though. He presented the notion that there is just as much ‘zealotry’ (not his word) on the left as the right. He brought up the example about the president of Harvard. He essentially lost his job because he brought up the question about women and biology and other stuff. The point is he raised legitimate scientific questions and the left reacted as harshly as the right.

This is not helping. We need to keep the floor open for discussion. I guess that’s not the stuff of good sound bites, but it’s what we should be talking about. So thank you Bill Maher for talking about it.

An example of this open debate in action: I disagree with things Bill Maher says. I respect his right to different opinions.

That’s all we’re talking about. We need tolerance and conversation people. To quote the cliche of cliche’s, ‘Why can’t we all just get along……?’

I’ve been wondering about this port deal that everyone has been talking about this week. One thing that seems to be happening is that there is a reaction going on. This reaction to me seems to be based on racism. A reaction to this deal for Dubai management to take over the ports of the United States. There are likely some legitimate concerns, but it seems like the bulk of the reaction is people in Congress trying to get some attention, set themselves apart from the current administration and stir up and actually encourage fear and racism.

To be fair, I don’t live near a port so this doesn’t affect me personally, but something just doesn’t seem right about this to me.

I found something out yesterday that i want people to know. Garrick told me about it. It’s pretty upsetting actually. MPR just finished another fund drive. They do that often to get money to run the station. I contribute to them. I’ve always felt it was a valuable resource. I was not in agreement with the recent big spend to build a big building. I’m somebody that works from home. I believe that things can be distributed and cost less. I got a fundraising call for the new building and I explained that I already gave a significant amount monthly and I didn’t think they should be building the new space. OR at least felt that enough viable options, meaning distributed options were not considered. I mean, why not set Mary Lucia up with a microphone from the comfort of her own home…..

i digress because that’s not what I found out yesterday……..

Garrick pointed me to Tod Maffin’s blog post.

Apparently some of that money that they needed to fund raise is going to the laywers. This is not how I want this money being spent. Al Gore started a TV station last year and it’s called Current. MPR is suing because that radio station that plays cool music is called The Current.

As if ‘current’ is something that PUBLIC radio owns or even could own. It’s public radio. It’s supposed to be for me. I mean, I’m paying for it. This is so disheartening. Only laywers win when people sue. This is not good public behavior. Doesn’t public mean things like participate, share, not sue for stupid things……

All I can say is i’m not happy and my contribution to this is definitely in jeopardy. My husband and I are going to try and be fair. We’ll write a letter, try to get both sides of the story, but if we are not satisfied with the response, we will show our disapproval via a donation withdrawal. At least I feel like I can do something. People need to be called when they behave unacceptably. I don’t think it’s MPR’s place to ‘protect its intellectual property’ of a word. I get all the stuff about brand. I worked at a global ad agency. I still don’t think this is ok.

I just caught up on movies over the weekend. I have to have seen at least one of them so I can cheer when I watch one of my favorite entertainers, Jon Stewart, hosting the Oscars. So we watched March of the Penguins. Wow. I forgot how brutal nature is. This film shows it in great detail too. Not anything gross, not anything wrong, just nature. These little penguins are amazing creatures and they live in a harsh environment with a very tough reality. Kindness and comfort are not on the top of nature’s priority list. I don’t want to give anything away, but if you were bummed when Bambi’s mother got killed, this is not the movie for you.

I posted about Northwest airlines a little over a year ago. I’ve never been happy with them and last fall they administered the final blow. So I blogged about them in a not so positive way. I recently cashed in some of those well earned miles for my in-laws. We are sending them to DC for a vacation. Funny thing is, they somehow got first class seats on the way home. I thought those reward seats always sucked. Hmmmmmmmmmm

it happens with words, music and even physical objects.

It seems that it is easier than ever these days to create your own reality. Facts are really becoming ’suggestions’. I’m sensing some danger in this approach. It seems a bit irresponsible to ignore what seems to most people-OBVIOUS. Yet, the denial and the cover-up march on.

From the New York Times online today,

“In early December, James Hansen, the space agency’s top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with “dire consequences” if he continued to call for aggressive action.”

So clearly there are powerful people that aren’t interested in addressing this problem. I just have one question, don’t these people have children and grand children? If they do have heirs, why wouldn’t they want to ensure those heirs would be able to survive and thrive in the future. You can try to hide from reality. You can push it down, to the side, out. You can flat out deny it. But, maybe you should think about what your children’s children will have to say about that when those consequences affect them and perhaps even make it so they can’t even live on this planet.

Of course, you’re powerful and rich so you probably have a plan to get your heirs to the another planet before this one kicks us off. Good luck with that.

I wonder why there is this triad. I know in my life when there has been a death, there have always been two more to follow. Women all over the country have lost three strong, important and diverse figures in the last few days. When I woke up yesterday and heard that Betty Friedan had died, it was the third. Wendy Wasserstein, Coretta Scott King and Betty Friedan are gone now. We are sadder for it. Thank you ladies, we’ll miss your influence and the things you might have done. I am extremely grateful to all of you for the things that you did do.

I have one very fond memory of a Wendy Wasserstein play. It was a college show I was in. It was an excerpt from one of Ms. Wasserstein’s plays. I had a sign and I marched for ‘Women in Art’. It was one of the best scenes and one of the best characters I ever experienced and I have her to thank for that.

I’m sure all of these women touched so many people they never even met. The only thing to do now is to keep that memory and let it inspire us to do better with the time we have left.

If you know me, you know I like to take pictures. I started a photography workshop with a local artist this Saturday. It’s a six week workshop. My stated goal for the sessions is to use this time as focused gumption building time. I want to start several projects that will become something else later and reach completion outside the bounds of the workshop. The artist in charge of the workshop completely understands this objective. To begin again is my objective. We are always beginning again. I’m going through a series of steps with my blossoming hobby to acheive, shall we say, the next level.

I’m printing out all my contact sheets and cataloging them. At the same time I am taking a big batch of new photos each day. I’m getting inspired in the new photos by some of the old photos. I’m experiencing fond memories and a general flashback time period. That’s the next step with digital photography. Experiencing it in the way you experience film photos that you just dug up out a shoebox or an old album you flipped through. I was at my friend Kat’s house the other day and she did just that. She pulled out some boxes with pictures and some old albums. That’s the next step I want to take my photography to. Creating meaningful interactions around the images.

The images inspire us. Everything is an imprint if you just change your perspective a degree. A moment in time. Captured.

Already a month of the year 2006 is gone. It’s February now. So far I’ve been to California and Colorado this year. I’ve gotten some pretty good work done too. I’m happy with the way things are going.

It’s been alarming how nice the weather has been in Minnesota. I mean it was the same temperature in CA as in MN during January, I was in both places and at different times of the day it was hard to tell the difference? Shouldn’t we all be a little bit concerned about that.?!

I got the funniest spam in the email today. It just made me pay attention and then laugh.