This is a post that really sums up why I like Obama. 

I wonder if these links will work????  Just wanted to say thanks to Laura for sharing so much great music with us.....and thanks for getting me onto YouTube.  I found some songs that I used to like a lot and some other songs that I have been looking for.


Elvis Costello, Viktor Lazlo, Sting, Reverend Horton Heat, The Red Violin, Shine, Color Purple

Thanks Laura.   I should be doing a home correspondence course but this sounds like much more fun.

THE RULES:
1. Link to the person's blog who tagged you.

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.

4. Tag seven random [?] people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Seven random/weird things about me

1.  I like to make lists
2.  I like gummy bears,Haribo Gummi Bears,and will eat them by the bagful. 
3.  I can back a semi trailer like backing a car.   
4.  I graduated summa cum laude from college.
5.  I learned how to snow ski in Austria. 
6.  I once put a four foot alligator in the back seat of my car.
7.  I want to take piano lesson

List seven people to send this to

Susan
Candi
Muir
Jeannie
Praveer
Leigh Anne
Darcy

I don't know how to put links in this post!!! 

Beef Stew.  I got a late start and we didn't eat until 8 that night.  When I was married, my family ate together nearly every night.  I usually would cook.   For sixteen years, that was the routine.  After my divorce, my interest in cooking evaporated.  When I have my kids, we still have meals together but  I have been buying a lot of take out.  This past Wednesday, I made the stew and changed the recipe slightly.  Its not really that much of a recipe, rather simple.  Brown stew meat in oil.  Add four cups of water and lipton cup of soup mix.  Simmer one hour.  Add carrots simmer 15 minutes.  Add potatos and an onion and cook for another half an hour. Add butter/flour mixture to thicken .  Worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper.   This time, I added the butter and flour mixture right after the potatos and let it cook nearly the full half hour.  Cooking is a labor of love.  The slow rise of anticipation in the family as the smells drift through the house.  Is it ready?  Is it ready?  Set the table.  Get out the place mats and napkins.  Pour the milk.  It's ready....can you pass the rolls.

Creativity is a colorform.  Taking down the pictures, our experiences and knowledge, from the sticky black background of our established thought, setting them on the floor, and rearranging them in new and different ways.  

New creative thought or ideas. A friend told me yesterday of a girl with autism who was being tested.   The doctors were debating whether she was retarded or incapable of being tested.  One of the doctors was convinced she was not retarded based on a recurring question."What if black is not the darkest color?"    While the other doctors dismissed the statement quickly with, "But black is the darkest color."  This one doctor said, "Okay, what if black is not the darkest color."  To which she replied, "Then we would use it to lighten the room."  

Air Pudding 

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassinations from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)  

An informed public is the cornerstone of democracy. However, the mainstream media is more concerned with viewership than their stewardship.   There are plenty of news programs but its more a question of what is news.  The competition for the public's attention has led to sensationalism and meaningless coverage, impacted the quality of candidates running for public office, and started us down the road of indifference and apathy.

What should the media do?  Do their job.  Report what SHOULD be reported.

"Miss Twiggley's Tree by Dorothea Warren Fox. "   That's how I would start the book each time I read it to my kids.  My copy is worn with love.  The tape that holds the the pages together is yellowing  and evidence of chocholate fingers  from my childhood still remain.  The author may have also done the illustrations.  On the cover, Miss Twiggley and Puss are at play.  Miss Twiggley, hurling out from beneath  the branches of her willow tree on a single rope, is a girl trapped in a woman's body.  Puss is seated in a swing beside her .  "Funny Miss Twiggley, Lived in a tree, With a dog named Puss, And a color TV"  That's how the story  starts.  A woman and her dog living life.   Miss Twiggley is older, certainly over 30, probably closer to 50, and Puss is a dog who can go grocery shopping.  They fly kites and associate with bears.  They have a house that....it's a treehouse with all the amenities.  It rocks!!!   Miss Twiggley and Puss are different though....and people don't like different.  The people and dogs in town are mean and critical of their treehouse lifestyle.   But when a hurricane causes a flood,  Miss Twiggley and Puss open their home to even their most vocal critics.   In the process everyone learns that they should be tolerant of each others differences and that despite any differences, there are friendships to be made.

We could load them onto catapults and launch them at contestants of a new reality show...a techno-refuse gauntlet ... the couch potato challenge.   Overweight, soft in the middle Americans huffing and puffing their way through a series of obstacles while TV's crash down upon them. 

This was on a friend's blog.  Can't help but smile.