My Mandela Moment

February 11, 2010 markes the 20th anniversary of the release of South African political prisoner and father of a revolution, Nelson Mandela.

This morning I sent members of my family to South Africa for 5 days of festivities that my friend Duma Ndlovu and the South African government have planned. Because of a very serious business commitment, I could not go (sob, sniffle, wail). But I will definitely enjoy hearing all about the thrilling events to come including trips to Parliament, dinner with MosDef and President Zuma, events with Nelson AND Winnie Mandela, a symbolic walk from that dreadful prison where so many dissidents were beaten, tortured and murdered, speeches, teach ins, song, dances and great food.

No doubt had I gone, I would have found the Be Sweet folks and spent many hours fondling their lovely goodness!




So tell me, what was your Mandela Moment?

Another College Road Trip

My Andrew is graduating high school next month. He has decided to go to college in Georgia. He has also received an academic scholarship to go to school in Connecticut, far closer to home. No manner of coaxing or bribing would sway his decision but I thought it would be a good idea to at least SEE the school.

We left on the Sunday after his spring break, problem #1. We left on a Sunday, problem #2. We left 3 days after he spent several days in Georgia looking at the school of his choice, problem #3. It was raining, problem #4. It was the Sunday before finals so there wasn't a soul ANYWHERE on campus, problem #5.

After Andrew decided that he would rather see the rest of the school from the car window, I went into my favorite building of any college campus - the library. There they were, all the good children, cramming for finals. But my Andrew didn't get to see any of these scholarly while hip hipsters. We left after only 40 minutes! It took nearly 4 hours to get up there and 40 minutes for the child to decide. Actually, he was decided before we even loaded up the car the night before.

My pal Phyllis, who is a repository of great advice, suggested that we stop at the Mark Twain House after Andrew got bored (how did she know?)




In a constant drizzle we walked along the grounds of this lovely restored home. I got to see wisteria in full bloom

Why is this important? I nursed a wisteria vine for 8 years with visions of Monet's gardens at Giverny in my mind. 8 years! Not a bud, nada! So, whenever I see a vine in full bloom, I stand in awe.

Inside were various exhibits of Twain memorabilia and lots of facts about his life and work. Displayed were the many poignant quotes and irreverent views he published on just about everything.

Andrew is a huge baseball fan and he was excited to see an old time exhibit on display.

But there was this...

This note was posted on a screen you had to go around to see the full exhibit. Inside were sad pictorial depictions of how nasty white america perceived blacks -



















Well, it is looking backward after all and as long as we remember the history and are mindful of the odious signs, we can continue to move forward toward a better understanding

Moving forward while others prefer backwards...

Grand Theft Auto

For years I had successfully imposed the, "No violent video games in my house" rule. If any of my boys even hinted that they wanted one of those games, they would have to endure endless hours of my stories about how unglamorous it is to grow up in the projects or the ghetto or a major city if you can't employ several body guards to walk around with you.


I'd make my sons listen to me go on and on about how I could not walk or drive through any number of sections in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, Manhattan or the Bronx because I could be attacked by bigoted mobs with baseball bats, mobs intent on robbing me, wilding police or just plain ol' sicko rapists. Why, having lived this, would I want my children playing with a game that celebrates this madness?

Well the other day, I happened into the living room and there they were on the $300 plus xbox playing this "game". I went crazy! Their response? "Mom, we are responsible teenagers now, not middle school dorks who don't know the difference between a game and a bad influence..."

Ironically, while my AP and Honors student tried explain why he lost his mind, playing in the background on my kitchen TV was the CSPAN hearings of even bigger car thieves - the CEOs of the so-called Big 3 auto manufacturers. Visions of Michael Moore's Roger and Me converged in my brain with flashbacks of my risk soaked days living the viva loca in New York City in my way cool pre-war apartment and how I traded in all in for a Chrysler mini van, 3 kids and a mortgage with an interest rate scheduled to reset in a few years. WHY????



Well, there is always knitting...




And escapes to cool knitting spots -

Charity yarn being sorted at Creative Knitworks in Hillsdale, New Jersey. The many bins of yarn will go to afterschool programs in Paterson, NJ and other youth programs in and around New Jersey!

That's Sharon, the owner, enjoying being in textile heaven!

Car pooled democracy

Well folks, you heard it. America is now supposed to go from a guy that guys want to have a beer with to a woman we can call up to car pool. No thanks. I prefer my country and my corporations to be run by smart people. Dumb people create Savings and Loans fiascos and FEMA diasters. If you are not sure if a bar boy or a hockey mom can fix this mess, start by checking out America's balance sheet after 8 years of the bar boy's reign...

Hard to find words after such a spectacle last night, but silly speeches ain't gonna get this country out of the mess created by the bar boy and his incompetent, greedy cronies.

Anyhoo, here are more pictures from the DNC convention.

If any of you are CSPAN addicts like me, you are familiar with Code Pink. A group of women who have decided to respond to our nation's wacky priorities by using wacky tactics to protest.

Now, I've seen many protests in my day but I must admit that this Code Pink lady used one of the best tactics I've ever witnessed. She got off of her bike when she saw these two policemen. She told them that they were so cute and strong, that she'd hate to know that they would be shot up in Iraq or ravished by sand fleas just so Halliburton could make another billion dollars. Not only did she get a 'rise' out of them, she got them to smile!

Did I tell you that there is a Starbucks on nearly every corner of downtown Denver? So much better than a bar on every corner like so many neighborhoods in Jersey. Here, right next to a Starbucks, was one of the DNC's credentials pickup offices. My first day in Denver, I stood on this line for well over an hour but it was cool because I got to drink coffee, have a great conversation with two women from Ms. Magazine and I got to knit!



One of the places I had the privilege to watch the Convention from included a popular actor who was getting a bit chilly in her lovely satin dress. I gave her my shawl that I had in my knitting bag.

my son snapped this picture of me wearing the same shawl at an outdoor festival in Denver on our last day there. Now my son thinks my shawl has been touched by hotness. I thought about giving the shawl to my son's hearthrob but it was made from Karabella's silky something or other and done in one of my favorite lace patterns - the candle flame shawl, I couldn't part with it. Can anyone guess who the actor is?

Well Kumar brought his own shawl, 'er vest. Actually he was volunteering and working quite hard too. He was trying to be inconspicuous but my son recognized him straight away!

One of the best dynamic speeches given during the entire convention was Congressman Dennis Kucinich's speech. He reminded us all that people can make change if we would just stand up!

Now, after watching the RNCs totally boring convention these past few days, I thought this picture my son took from the floor of the DNC best illustrates the difference in each party. Can you figure it out?

'nuff said

WTF???

by Bethany Sanders Jul 21st 2008 9:15AM

Here's the good news: Disney is finally creating their first African-American princess. Here's the bad news: They just can't seem to get it right. The first version, The Frog Princess, was scrapped due to complaints that it was too stereotypical. The princess, named Maddy, was to be a chambermaid who worked for a spoiled white woman. Maddy is saved from a voodoo magician by a white prince, with help from her voodoo fairy godmother.

Disney's second version -- The Princess and the Frog --is still a musical set in New Orleans, but the company is keeping mum on most of the details. The heroine will be a 19-year-old named Tiana, and the film will be set in the Jazz Age. Disney says, "Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney's rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity." Let's all hope they do exactly that.

- from Parentdish

I really need to consider becoming a vegetarian...

About a dozen pigs, including this one, escaped from a flooded Iowa farm and made it to a levee. But they were shot and killed by authorities who said the animals threatened to weaken the barrier.

May Day

As we celebrate spring and our adoration of yarn and all things fibrous, please remember the textile workers who perhaps cannot enjoy our enthusiasm because of harsh working conditions and/or poor wages. May Day is International Workers Day:

The mill owners often took in orphans to their workhouses, they lived at the mill and were worked as hard as possible. They spent most of their working hours at the machines with little time for fresh air or exercise. Even part of Sunday was spent cleaning machines. There were some serious accidents, some children were scalped when their hair was caught in the machine, hands were crushed and some children were killed when they went to sleep and fell into the machine.

In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Jack London's The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860's, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn't until the late 1880's that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.

In the spring of 1911, a fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City, claimed the lives of 146 young immigrant workers. It is one of the worst disasters since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This incident should be remembered because it reminds us of the inhumane working conditions many industrial workers endure in order to have a job. Factories, for many, epitomizes the extremes of industrialism and greed.

Many of the Triangle factory workers were women, some as young as 15 years old. They were, for the most part, recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States with their families to seek a better life. Instead, they faced lives of grinding poverty and horrifying working conditions. As recent immigrants struggling with a new language and culture, the working poor were ready victims for the factory owners. For these workers, speaking out could end with the loss of desperately needed jobs, a prospect that forced them to endure personal indignities and severe exploitation.

Skillz

Evidently I no longer have the right stuff to fix a computer. After much gnashing of the teeth, I've finally completed piecing together my operating system so I can at least load web pages. This "fix" will have to suffice until santa (hint, hint) drops me a new machine because I ain't even thinking about going through a system restore on this computer. Nobody would ever believe that I used to do this for a living 20 years ago. That was long before the destruction of billions and billions of my brain cells that, I must tell you my mamma never told me would occur after nursing 3 babies.

Yup that's one of those 3 babies and my mamma

So, what have I been up to? I'm almost done with my hoodie sweater but I don't think it will fit. Lots of knitting but no pictures for now, what I'd like to show you are some catching up flicks from the past few weeks.

Fortunately, being under domestic duress for nearly 20 years, one does acquire a new skill set:



Don't think that anyone in the picture below even notices what all is required to make anything from scratch but hey, at least we girls can appreciate a decent German Chocolate cake!

Thanksgiving was spent at my brother's house in Delaware. It was the first year that I didn't have to cook for what seemed like millions.


Stashing on Ravelry
I completed photographing much of my stash for Ravelry. Hopefully this exercise will remind me what I got so I won't buy any more!

A Family Affair
As you all know, I've been making chemo caps for my brother-in-law Larry James. What I didn't know was that his job was also making stuff for him, a huge tribute of 800 guests to honor his commitment to the world athletic and academic communities.

Olympic Team, 1968

Larry was part of the spirited 1968 Olympic Track and Field Team. He and many of his team mates endured enormous obstacles living in America at the time. They were expected to represent their country with pride while being segregated against and denied equal access to many institutions across our country.

Olympic Team, 2007

Larry thanking the guests. That's my sister under the flag.

Me with my niece and my sister's and Larry's granddaughter

That's my Jonathan cooling his heels at his table. At 13, he had 2 social conflicts that night - a huge Bar Mitzvah in New York City and a basketball game. I should have his social life!

After the testimonial that included his college teammates; Olympic teammates and officials; college and board presidents; and many colleagues, we were surprised to see that the school renamed their stadium to the G. Larry James Stadium!

We had the best time.

That's my little sister, her daughter and the tiny one standing is another granddaughter of my sister and Larry.

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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

May there be peace...

LYSISTRATA (Aristophanes - Greek, c. 444-380 B.C.)

Writing at a time of bitter warfare between Athens and Sparta, Aristophanes criticized the warmongers, demagogues, and profiteers rampant on the Athenian scene in such plays as the Acharnaians, Peace and Lysistrata.

In the celebrated comedy Lysistrata, Athenian and Spartan ladies get together and wage a successful sex-strike for the end of the war between the two city-states. In this excerpt, Lysistrata, strike leader, is being interviewed by one of the town fathers:

Magistrate: And how do you propose to disentangle all this and settle everybody?

Lysistrata: Easily.

Magistrate: How?

Lysistrata: Just as when wool is tangled we untangle it, working it through this way and that - so we'll settle the war, sending embassies this way and that.

Magistrate: Threads, skeins, spindles, you little fool: What's this to do with war?

Lysistrata: If you had any sense you could handle politics as we do wool!

Magistrate: Well...?

Lysistrata: Like the raw fleece in the wash tub, first you must cleanse the city of dirt: As we beat out the muck and pick out the burrs, you must pluck out the place-seekers, sack the spongers out of their sinecure offices, rip off their heads - then the common skein of good sense: - blend the good aliens, the allies, the strangers, even the debtors, into one ball; consider the colonies scattered threads, pick up their ends and gather them quick; make one magnificent bobbin and weave a garment of government fit for the people!

Magistrate: It's all very well this carding and winding - women! You haven't any idea of what war means.

Lysistrata (very deliberate and serious): We know just twice as well. We bore the sons, you took the soldiers.

Magistrate: Must you recall such painful memories?

Lysistrata: Yes

- excert from the book, Poems of War Resistance from 2300 B.C. to the Present, published 1969.