Daily Cup of Jo

Is it over yet?

Haitian born musician and former Fugees front man Wyclef Jean is not giving up on his desire to become Haiti’s president, even though he was considered ineligible to run because he hasn’t lived in the country over the past five years (lucky for him).  I was thinking this week how much Obama wanted to be president of the U.S. at a time when the country was falling apart economically, we were fighting two wars, and there was a general feeling of malaise and disenchantment among the natives.  He got his wish.  To Wyclef Jean, looking to lead one of the poorest countries on the planet, a year after a devastating earthquake, I say be careful what you wish for.  I wonder if Jean read James Dobbins’ recent article, “A to-do list for shoring up Haiti“?

Thirty-three miners were found alive after seventeen days following a cave-in August 5th in Chile.  Trapped in an area about 540 square feet and over 2000 feet into the earth, it was originally thought the miners could be rescued sometime near Christmas.  What the heck?!  Christmas?  Four inch diameter bore holes have been used to pass the miners supplies through a “tunnel”, including food, letters and clean clothes, but Christmas?!  It sounds like a new reality show, “Extreme Big Brother”.  Today, however, mine engineers believe they’ve come up with a Plan B that may halve the amount of time the miners will be trapped.  So maybe Halloween?  Oh, the stories that will come out of this…

China this week reportedly has decided to revisit their death penalty policies.  Considering the country puts more people to death each year (around 5000 in 2009) than the rest of the world’s governments combined, the reevaluation sounds a bit overdue.  Caught cheating on your taxes in China?  Stealing fossils, damaging public property?  You’re dead.  Seriously.

Former president Jimmy Carter helped secure the release of American Aijalon Mahli Gomes from North Korea and was bringing him home to Boston on Friday.  Gomes was arrested in January after illegally entering the country from China for unknown reasons and sentenced to eight years hard labor.  After Euna Lee and Laura Ling obtained their release via Bill Clinton a year ago from North Korea, shouldn’t we more strongly discourage our citizens from getting anywhere near there?  In terms of ex-presidents able to come to the rescue now, we’ve got George H.W. and his son.  I wouldn’t take my chances.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman has come out as a homosexual, after “arriving at this conclusion…fairly recently”.  Mehlman, who headed the RNC from 2005-2007, just after  George Bush and his administration pushed an anti-gay marriage amendment, still believes there’s a place in the Republic party for homosexuals.  I disagree.  I don’t get the Log Cabin Republicans.

Glenn Beck was at the Lincoln Memorial today with friend Sarah Palin, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered at the same location 47 years ago, addressing thousands upon thousands of tea partiers eager to “restore honor” to this great country and deliver us from “wandering in darkness”.  Glenn Beck, you are no Martin Luther King Jr., not by a million miles.

A judge in Washington D.C. on Monday stopped federal funding for President Obama’s expanded stem cell research policies, effectively reverting to the intent and language of the 1995 Dickey-Wicker amendment.  Read my post about it from Tuesday and don’t be ashamed for smiling after reading “Dickey-Wicker”.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan jumped into the fray caused by the Los Angeles Times release two weeks ago of teacher evaluations as they pertained to student test scores and achievement.  It should come as no surprise to anyone in the state of California, specifically the LAUSD, that the teachers’ union doesn’t want any part of a teacher’s “grade” to be tied in with a student’s “grade” (my quotation marks).  The discussion isn’t about making a test score the definitive indicator of whether or not a teacher is effective but rather one of several factors indicating an instructor’s success.  United Teachers Union Los Angeles president, A.J. Duffy (sounds like an NFL quarterback), says the union is willing to sit down with the LAUSD and talk but won’t make any commitment about what he’ll talk about.  So again, the children suffer and on Tuesday, California lost out on federal funds from the Race to the Top initiative.  All is well.

I heard a rumor some Muslims are thinking about building an Islamic community center near ground zero.  Have you heard about that?

“Avatar” was released again this past weekend with an additional eight minutes of footage.  Is it just me, or wasn’t the original version long enough?  Too long?  I will say though that of the seven-thousand movies released in 2010 using 3D technology, “Avatar” was the only one worth the trouble, and the extra price.

Tiger Woods finally did well golfing, shooting a 6-under 65 on Thursday at The Barclays in Jersey.  Today, however, he hit a triple bogey, among other bogeys.  Oh, and his divorce was final this week.

Twelve days to the season opener of the NFL, Thursday September 9^th, the Minnesota Vikings vs. the New Orleans Saints on NBC.  And yes, before then there’s a lot of baseball going on.  I like baseball.

And I think I like all of you, although I’m not sure.

Today, I felt like a berry cobbler or an apple crisp.  Yesterday, I simply felt like the burdened mother of three children who can’t stop annoying each other.  The day before that, I was a flea catching dog owner.  My life is fascinating day after day, and purposeful.

After Miss T’s first soccer practice was over this evening and I threw some dinner on the table for everyone, I set about making this.  Sadly, the girls were in bed before it came out of the oven.  Happily, I got to taste it first.

A few things I would change now after having made it: I would increase the amount of butter added to the crumble part so it wasn’t so, well, crumbly.  And I’d up the amount of ginger I put in, because I didn’t taste it at all in this version.  I’ve already adjusted it here, so make this and tell me what you think.  It’s a berry crisp with vanilla ice cream on top.  What’s not to like?

Basic, Tasty Berry Crisp

1 lb. mixed berries (I bought a bag of frozen at Trader Joe’s and thawed it)

1 T. sugar

1 cup whole wheat flour (‘cause I’m trying to be healthy)

1 cup rolled oats

¾ cup brown sugar

½ t. cinnamon

½ t. ground ginger

¼ t. ground nutmeg

1 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350°.  Mix berries and sugar in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix together flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  Cube the butter and cut it into the flour mixture until well combined.  Lightly butter an 8×8 baking dish.  Press half of the flour/oats mixture into the bottom of the dish.  Pour the berries over this and spread.  Sprinkle the rest of the flour mixture over the top.  Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown on top.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

I could’ve finished the whole dish tonight but my jeans don’t fit as it is so…

Where’s Waldo?  Who cares?

Where the hell are you?

Where angels go, trouble follows.  (Just ask my kids.)

Where is the love?

Where did I put my keys?  My sunglasses?  My cell phone?  The scissors?  My watch?  The suitcase full of money?  My brain?

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  (Don’t you know it.)

Where are they now?

Where is McGyver when you need him?

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.  – Dalai Lama

Where should we eat?

Where are you going?  Where have you been?

Where is Podunk?  Bumfuck?

Where the Wild Things Are is an odd little book by Maurice Sendak that they mistakenly made into a movie.

“Where the Sidewalk Ends” is another odd little poem by Shel Silverstein.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is? – Goethe

Where was I going and what was I going to do when I got there?

Chuck E. Cheese: Where a kid can be a kid (and a grown-up can drink beer).

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  (This isn’t nearly as simple and easy as it sounds.)

Where am I going to put this?

Where the hell is Osama bin Laden?

Where thou art, that is home.  – Emily Dickenson

Where I come from, people don’t start a sentence “Where I come from…”

Goldie: “Where did you get that?”  Bun Bun: “From Mom.”  Goldie: “Mom, can I have what she has?”  Mom: “You don’t even know what it is.”  Goldie: “So what?”

Where my heart will take me is not always the easiest place to go.

Where shall I begin?

Where did you get that hat?  (I hope you didn’t pay too much for it.)

Where will we be in five years?  Ten?

Families is WHERE our nation finds hope, WHERE wings take dream.  – George W. Bush

Where do you get off telling me this post is kind of stupid?

Where is this all going to end?

Right here.

I know.  It’s Wednesday.  Deal with it.

There are areas of debate certain individuals should avoid, though they rarely do.  Ignorant people everywhere step lively into topical discussion they know almost nothing about.  Thankfully, many defer to experts and then often judges, to dissect a conundrum, hear opposing arguments, and then make a decision hopefully wiser than Joe six-pack would make himself.

And then, there is abortion…and stem cell research.

The political party you belong to often defines itself by its stand on both issues.  For some voters, it is the litmus test to decide whether or not a candidate gets your vote.  Pro-life or pro-choice?  Expand stem cell research or stop it dead in its tracks?

On Monday, a federal district judge in D.C. blocked President Obama’s executive order from 2009 that expanded stem cell research (SCR) beyond George W. Bush’s agreement to federally fund SCR but limited to the 21 cell lines already in existence.

I have almost no idea what stem cell research is.  In order to conduct it, embryos are required and stem cells are obtained through the destruction of said embryos.  But that’s all I know and it’s probably equal to what most people understand.

In other words, I’m Joe six-pack (I’m actually Jo no-six pack – not drinking, and the abs don’t resemble one) and I’m about to wade into this armed with nothing more than my feelings and opinions.  Lord help us.

In reference to the sub-prime mortgage debacle and the crazy derivatives created during, I am neither an economist nor a financial analyst.  But while the global economy was tanking, I felt strongly that persons who should have been smarter than I were, in fact, not.  I had no issue ranting about the greed and idiocy of it all, and if someone dared accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about, I would reply, “I know enough.”  Regarding scientists and stem cell research, I can’t say the same is true.  I only know the morass of my emotions, including those that are knee-jerk.  When W took an inordinate amount of time to process his own thoughts about SCR and then decided the moral implications of destroying embryos (those essentially “abandoned” in fertility clinics) was too much to bear, I kind of flipped out.  He was espousing “sanctity of life” reasons.  I wondered about the sanctity of lives lost in Iraq to fight a stupid war of our own making.

It’s complicated.  No one wants to think of embryos being destroyed, even if they are being used to find cures and treatments for diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries.  But what Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled on Monday feels a little like cutting off one’s nose to spite the face.  Scientists already in the throes of their bio-medical research with stem cells will be abruptly cut off when the federal funds they’ve already been allotted run out.  In theory, a Jonas Salk could be moments away from an Alzheimer’s breakthrough and suddenly find himself unable to continue for lack of funds.  Experts would admit, however, in truth this scenario is not imminent and that patience is required for any medical eureka moment, but all indicators point to success down the road.  Why stop now?  And with stem cells that already exist, from embryos already “discarded”?

It’s more than a touchy subject.  I know that.  The two scientists who brought the case before Judge Lamberth feel that the same research can be conducted on adult stem cells and therefore, embryonic SCR is unnecessary.  The actual argument is a splitting hairs one involving the language of previous law, even before W’s decision, and I won’t attempt to explain it.  But again, why stop research already in progress?  When it comes to scientists and bio-medical experts, I defer.  They know A LOT MORE than I do.  And if they believe they can ultimately help children today not have to watch their parents get older and forget who they are, I’m all for it.  Too many of my friends today have either lost or are losing their parents to Alzheimer’s and/or Parkinson’s disease.  A dear friend’s father died due to complications from diabetes.  Lamberth’s decision seems to me erroneous.

The National Institute of Health and the White House will immediately appeal the ruling.

Occasionally still, I get treacly emails from friends telling me how great I am simply because I’m someone’s mother.  I hate those emails.  I don’t even open and read them anymore, because the longer I am a mother, the more I realize this whole thing is a crapshoot.  While I may have the most important job in the world (that’s what all those emails always say), the qualifications are suspect at best.  There were no exams to pass, and even my husband has admitted to be pleasantly surprised that I’m not a basket-case when it comes to raising the girls.  Thanks honey.

My favorite quote pertaining to parenthood comes from Hodding Carter:   There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children.  One is roots, the other, wings.

I don’t have to explain the meaning there, do I?  The roots part feels natural to me.  In 2010, the wings idea is much more difficult.  I’m constantly questioning my ability, our ability as a society, to allow children to make their own mistakes, to get into scrapes and figure out for themselves how to get out of them, to cut their own damn meat.  I’m not a heli-parent by any means.  I don’t hover over my kids.  But I’m a far cry from my own mother, who allowed my siblings and I freedom that would be considered child-abuse today.  It wasn’t then and it isn’t now child abuse, nor neglect.  It was life, our lives, and I can’t help feeling that, in most ways, I’m a better person for being allowed to live that way.

Last week, my friend Elizabeth sent me (and several others) this missive about our past.  I don’t agree with everything it contains, particularly the line, “What can kids do today besides push buttons?”  I happen to be a big fan of kids today and all they can do, and I believe it’s our own damn fault that they’re not learning the same kind of independence we were allowed.  But I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I received the email and haven’t stopped trying to figure out ways to give Goldie, Bun Bun and Miss T some of what I had.  But I’m getting somewhere.  Goldie made dinner tonight while Bun Bun ran up and down the stairs with scissors in her hand.  Miss T was outside playing with matches.

I’m kidding.  I don’t actually know where Miss T is.

The email:

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes made with Lard, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-AID made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight.   WHY?
Because we were always outside playing….that’s why!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on…
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have PlayStations, Nintendos or X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones,
no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.
Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the BEST risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. What can kids today do besides push buttons?
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it ?