|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Patricia Jones | profile | all galleries >> An Ordinary Day | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
| previous page | pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ALL | next page |
My only credential for pontificating about court decisions is that briefly in 9th grade I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. (In plenty of time, I realized that many future lawyers major in history in college. Oops…time to rethink!) However, we all aspire to be counted in the Informed Citizenry category, and I’ve at least made a personal pledge to study the topics I’m talking about. First I read a New York Times article by Adam Cohen about how the Supreme Court regarded the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 a stand-alone case; it is not supposed to be discussed or used as precedent in other cases, even ones about the narrow notion of equal protection of all voters’ rights to use the same dependable voting methods. Then on NPR, I heard a discussion about the many district court “unpublished opinions” which are not supposed to be used as precedent in deciding future cases; you can listen to the piece here. The job of lawyers just got a whole lot easier—or maybe harder—if they don’t have to research and be guided by all the other relevant cases from the past. I’ve always assumed that was a given. Who wants to live in a country where a case is considered and decided upon in a vacuum and without reference to the body of existing law? There are enough pitfalls or opportunities for human error (judges are making judgments, after all) without introducing the notion of starting from scratch on each new case and depending simply on such factors as the persuasive skills of the lawyers or the political leanings or whims of the judges. This seems to me to be a serious issue of fairness and consistency that needs more light shed on it.
As if a pink-champagne lisianthus weren’t beautiful enough, a close examination of its overlapping petals is more enchanting still. This further crop of a macro shot has been processed to suggest a watercolor effect. (As with all photo-blog images, you can click on the image to enlarge it; just click on the new version to get back to the blog page.)
Went to see An Inconvenient Truth. Mourned anew that this sober, intelligent thinker and communicator is not our President. Vowed to recommend the movie. Then Ralph proposed that we consider changing our electricity provider to one of the “clean” choices. For example, Energetix has an option to supply 50% or 100% of your electricity from wind and water. We tried to research the actual costs, risks, and benefits of doing so, and I challenge anyone without our combined years of post-secondary education to navigate this minefield and feel confident about the eventual decision. We think the premium we’ll pay is about +15% per kilowatt hour or less than $200 a year. Okay, enough: we have decided to just do it, to make our own tiny investment in alternative energy development. Keep up the good work, Al.
Jacquie never lets a medical problem sink her, and she has already had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate it. She probably knows that there are a lot more babies’ heads that need cradling in soft crocheted blankets, more children dreaming of football and trains under her afghans, more books waiting for her at Amazon.com, more dragon boats to cheer, and DVDs queued up endlessly at NetFlix. Hers is the soul at the center of her extended family’s households, and though she feels slights deeply she is quick to laugh, forgive, and move on. She’s like one of those tiny super balls that startle and charm you with the height of their bounce, and I’m confident that she’ll be multitasking at the next book club meeting and joking about everything except her own challenges. Friends will smile and observe that the Energizer Bunny could use her as a role model.
I have waited for the dust to settle around Mel Gibson’s recent very public drunken rant, because I feel more strongly about how everybody reacted than about what he said and did. Wouldn’t it be equally reprehensible, disgusting, and dishonest no matter who voiced those sentiments? Why do we even expect celebrities to travel the moral high road? If we were to find out that Angelina Jolie is not a great parent or that Paul Newman makes Joanne Woodward do all the cooking even though it’s his name on the salad dressing, what right would we have to feel betrayed? They’re movie stars, not religious leaders. This is just not newsworthy. Instead, we give a pass to some of our political leaders when they misrepresent and outright lie, act out of cynicism or self-interest or ignorance on issues that affect us now and forever, and exploit our hunger for true spirituality and morality. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sonny Bono aside, let’s hope we can continue to separate entertainment from leadership and save our outrage for the times it might do some good.
This photograph of Mel Gibson is a still from the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? .
An acquaintance once referred to gladiolas as funeral flowers, and experiencing it almost as a personal affront I’ve spent years trying to convince myself and others that as home décor they make a striking and modern impact. The colors are so luscious, and I don’t mean those garish combinations like yellow with a red eye or purple and yellow in the same flower. I love butter yellow ones combined with all the peach, salmon, and orange shades, or purple, pink, and fuchsia with what the growers insist on calling blue. I was recalling recently that Granddaddy Melker grew gladiolas in rows but I don’t remember ever seeing them in an arrangement in the house. Where did they all disappear to? Then I had an image of him fanning the flowers in a bouquet in a large, grey-painted, hoop-handled wicker basket that was just for holding flowers at the cemetery. After lunch, he would take the flowers to his little son’s gravesite and then continue on to the American store for groceries or to the bank or to Kovatch’s garage for service on his two-toned blue Oldsmobile 88. This was done without explanation or fanfare, repeated often throughout our summer visits. I hadn’t thought about this for years, but I suppose he would have said that gladiolas are funeral flowers.
I don’t even like documentaries that much, but the movie Wordplay is a riot. As with many similar “a closer look at…” movies, e.g., Spellbound, the film maker seems to be poking good-natured fun at the subjects and the activity, but in this case it has definitely been done with the full knowledge and cooperation of the featured players. They don’t think their preoccupation with crossword puzzles is over the top at all. And who wouldn’t want to be in the company of such crossword puzzle enthusiasts as Bill Clinton, the Indigo Girls, Ken Burns, and Jon Stewart, not to mention Mr. Crossword, Will Shortz? I’m probably the only person who didn’t know that the New York Times puzzles progress in difficulty from Monday to Sunday, so I decided to test out the notion by doing all the puzzles starting on Monday, August 7. For me, they did steadily become more difficult over the period, although I didn’t think they were so easy even on Monday and Tuesday. Of course I timed myself: Monday, 15 minutes, all correct; Tuesday, 20 minutes, all correct; Wednesday, 35 minutes, all correct; Thursday, gave up after 40 minutes when I didn’t even have half the answers. On Friday, pictured here, I was about to give up until I got an extra shot of adrenaline when one of the answers was “Patsy,” although unfortunately the clue for 28 Across was “Sap.” I still had eight words that I didn’t get. On Saturday, I got exactly six words filled in--and without total confidence that they were correct--before I abandoned ship. As for Sunday, I have often tried that one and once—once!—I stuck with it all afternoon and solved the whole thing. Not that it’s a competition, but I’m mindful of the fact that my brother thinks it’s fun to try those totally incomprehensible puzzles at the bottom of the page on Sunday. For now, I’m going to stick with my Sudoku.
In an attempt to allay the tomato anxiety of certain Labor Day weekend invitees, we commissioned a GPS (Garden Productivity Survey). There are at least 250 well-formed but still green regular tomatoes--and cherry tomatoes too numerous to count without incurring overtime charges. Tomatoes in some form will appear on the menu at every meal and family members may be asked to perform blind taste tests to determine which varieties should be planted next year.
How could the bird commonly called the Mute Swan be associated with the poet and playwright who voiced so many ideas and gave us a speech for every occasion? Whether in England’s Stratford or Canada’s, nesting pairs of swans are found preening and sailing near the shores of the River Avon. The Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario juts out majestically from the grassy slope above the lake, and every visit to the town includes the requisite stroll along the water’s edge. The ungainly and oddly proportioned birds share the path with their human admirers and then slip into the water where their graceful forms make a reverse silhouette against the dark water.
This past winter during the Winter Olympics, we were strangely drawn to televised curling games. There are elaborate rules and rituals associated with a match, and we went online to examine diagrams and explanations of the game. The related game of lawn bowling is played throughout the world, less so in the U.S. than in Canada where it is often thought of as a Scottish pastime, and that is where we saw these women playing a match. Ralph spotted the slightly flat-sided or “biased” ball which causes a distinct curve to its path as it slows. (In this way it differs from bocce.) We noticed the apparent dress code and the restraint of the players as they watched to see how close the ball would come to the “jack,” a smaller white ball. For some reason, the bowler pictured here in fine form was the victim of a decided lack of team spirit and support from her friends!
I like almost all flowers and can usually find something good to say about any plant. I’m not deterred even by the fact that we have in our gardens just about every plant mentioned today in a newspaper article, Mean and Green, about invasive plants. But I am most entranced by plants that produce good cut flowers for arrangements. One of my first tasks each morning is to walk out to the back garden, scissors and a basket packed with containers of water in hand, to pick whatever has blossomed during the night. After a three day vacation in Canada, I came home to a bounty of gorgeous blooms. The challenge becomes to get them arranged in vases for my house, for my mother, and for friends, before they lose their fresh beauty. This is a picture of all the flowers I picked today, an array of colors and shapes in vases with their own histories: one a gift from Christy, another from Elaine, one of a pair that my Aunt Patsy recalls were on the mantel the day of her wedding, a spoon holder and a celery glass from Ralph’s grandparents’ era, several bought over the years at garage sales or the Salvation Army store. This is the kind of day I dream about all through the spring and early summer.
With ticket prices for the Stratford Festival in the $60 to $100 range, you wouldn’t expect to see too many young children filling the seats, but Thursday afternoon the musical Oliver! was the bill of fare. Some Shakespeare purists bemoan the inclusion—and even the overwhelming popularity—of Broadway-style musicals on each new year’s schedule, but I enjoy them and the families packing the performances seem to concur. Pint-sized theater-goers must have been impressed with the acting, singing voice, and sheer cuteness of the boy who played Oliver; he is a small 4th grader who seemed even more miniature next to Colm Feore’s Fagin. The story is accessible and there are quite a few memorable and appealing tunes in Oliver, including Food, Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, As Long As He Needs Me, and Where is Love?. I’m not sure, however, what children might make of the likable Fagin and the way Nancy bows to abuse. As adults, will these children recall that their parents dragged them whining to a play or that their parents gave them a gift, like a savings bond that increases in value over their lifetimes?
| previous page | pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ALL | next page |