With the PA Presidential Primary only three weeks away, we're getting alot of attention here in Philadelphia.
Today's front page story on the Metro, a free daily paper, is about Hillary Clinton's comparison of herself to Rocky Balboa.
I think my officemate summed it up best when he said, "Bad analogy. Rocky lost. To a black guy."
Oops.
From time to time, someone will ask me why the legalization of gay marriage is important. There are 1138 federal benefits of marriage. This post by one of my favorite mom-bloggers sheds some light one one of the most recent ways that not being married to her partner Cole has affected their family. Bah.
In my life, the personal is political and vice versa. Today, citizens in 22 states will have the opportunity to have their voices heard. If you live in one of those states, please vote today. VOTE! My vote on April 22 may or may help to decide who the candidate for the Democratic party may be. I'm hoping that many more states will get to vote before a candidate clinches the nomination. I am strongly in favor of a national primary but since that is clearly not a reality right now, please take advantage of having your voice heard if you are lucky enough to live in a state where your primary falls early enough to matter.
I couldn't help but think of River Phoenix when I heard about Heath Ledger yesterday.
Natalie Merchant expresses the thoughts of many in her beautiful song, River:
Young & strong Hollywood son
In the early morning light
This star fell down
On Sunset Boulevard
Young & strong beautiful one
That we embraced so close
Is gone
Was torn away
Let the youth of America mourn
Include him in their prayers
Let his image linger on
Repeat it everywhere
With candles with flowers
He was one of ours
One of ours
Why don't you let him be?
He's gone
We know
Give his mother and his father peace
Your vulture's candor
Your casual slander
You murder his memory
He's gone
We know
It's nothing but a tragedy
Lay to rest your soul and body
Lay beside your name
Lay to rest your rage
Your hunger and amazing grace
With candles, with flowers
You were one of ours
One of ours
I saw cameras expose your life
I heard rumors explode with lies
I saw children in tears
Cry and crowd around the sight
Of where you had collapsed that day
Where your last breath & word
Had been sighed
Where your heart had burst
And where you had died
Where you had died
I saw how they were lost in grieving
All half-believing you were gone
The loss and pain of it
Crime and the shame of it
You were gone
It was such a nightmare raving,
"how can we save him
From himself?"
Oh, let us turn our thoughts today
to Martin Luther King
and recognize that there are ties between us
all men and women
living on the earth
ties of hope and love
of sister and brotherhood
that we are bound together
in our desire to see the world become
a place in which our children can grow free and strong
we are bound together by the task that stands before us
and the road that lies ahead
we are bound
and we are bound
James Taylor, Shed a Little Light
A police office was shot in Philadelphia this morning, the second one in twelve hours, the third in four days. The number of violent crimes and homicides continues to escalate in Philadelphia.
My heart was breaking this afternoon, not only for this man's family, but for other families who are not directly involved with this tragedy. I work with students. I generally don't talk about work on this blog but I do work with students many of whom are Black. I spoke to a parent today who said she was trying to figure out what to do with her son after school today. Her neighborhood was being circled by helicopters. I could hear the sirens in the background while we spoke. My initial assumption was that the mom was afraid of her son encountering the suspect. Instead, the mom was worried about her son being mistaken for the suspect. Her son is a young man, around 6 feet tall, and he's wearing his school uniform- a white shirt and khaki pants, the same clothing the suspect is described to be wearing.
This woman is as afraid, if not more so, of her son being profiled as a violent criminal than of him encountering one. God only knows what kind of greeting young Black men in the city are receiving today. Never mind, I can figure out how they're being greeted and so can you.
So much of this day is upsetting to me.
By the way, what do you think of a bigot asking for tolerance? I love being lumped in with pedophiles and heroin addicts. He makes me sick.
I believe
There is love in heaven
I believe
All will be forgiven
Peace and joy be with them
Harmony and wisdom
Peace and joy be with them
Harmony and wisdom
I believe
I believe
I believe
Oh I believe
- Spring Awakening
I pray on this day, that we all have peace in our hearts.
I believe.
I'm on the edge of the abyss. The shootings at VA Tech have the attention of the country. I too am horrified by these acts of violence.
I have a hard time separating the feelings and issues of other people from my own. I have an especially difficult time doing so when there is alot of information readily available. After 9/11, I could not stop reading the news. After Katrina, I could not stop reading the news. More individual stories like the death of Christopher Reeve were equally disturbing to me. I get caught up in my mind- what if it were me? what would I do? How would I feel? And then I take on those feelings, and worries, and despair.
On Monday, I spent the workday with headphones in my ears, listening to news on my computer while I worked. You can imagine how productive I was. I vowed as I left work on Monday to not watch any news. I read two stories yesterday about the shootings, and saw the pictures of the shooter, the student, the AMERICAN student who killed 32 people. My buttons are being pushed all over the place. That he is being referred to as South Korean is getting to me. He lived here since he was 8. He's AMERICAN, not a friggin terrorist. I also can't help but look at this from the view of a college administrator, as that's what I am by education and experience. I think about the RAs, the Director of Residential Life, the Dean of Students, the President, the many faculty members. And I can only imagine the chaos and confusion and grief that are now colored by guilt.
The other thing that is getting to me is the media. According to this site, 72 members of the US and UK forces were killed in Iraq so far in April, an average of 4 per day. There have been 733 confirmed deaths of Iraqi forces and civilians in that same period, in the last 17 days. Why don't we know that? Why do we know everything about Anna Nicole's baby's daddy and about Don Imus and what everyone in the entertainment industry thinks of his bigotry and hatred?
Why don't we know how many people have been killed in Iraq? Why doesn't the news cover that?
Is it because it's old news?
Because it isn't showy, like the VA Tech story is? Where we can put a sorority girl on the radio who was not even on campus during the shooting and had not been on the campus before she was interviewed, and have her talk about how afraid she is.
Where we can put put boys and girls on tv to tell their story and then flash the face of the shooter, with the caption, South Korean, Cho Seung Hui...
By all accounts, this boy was disturbed. He needed help. In the coming days and weeks, we will learn more about the warning signs, the red flags, the people who tried to help him and failed, just like we learned about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and why they did what they did 8 years ago in Columbine, CO.
I can't make sense of it. And if you can make sense of any of my points above, God bless. All I know is that I'm in danger of falling into the abyss, of not being able to tell where I end and where the VA Tech kids begin. Of where I end and where the RAs and administrators at VA Tech begin. Of where I end and where Cho Seung Hui's parents begin.
And that scares me.
Don't forget to vote today!
I swiped this picture from my sister. This is my nephew Joshua and niece Evie with their "I Voted" stickers!
If you do your duty by voting today, you'll be as happy and proud as Joshua!
Let's see...
DC:
My trip was fun. I saw some friends, learned some stuff, and went to Stitch DC, the Capital Hill location. It had a great feel to it. Lots of people hanging out knitting, lots of space to wander, places to sit and yarn to see. Maybe because Craig tends to order tons of colorways in the yarn he carries at Loop, I seem to feel like there isn't enough selection when I go into a yarn store these days. Must stop comparing and just enjoy a store on it's own merits. Like the merits of scoring 1300+ yards of lace weight merino for $8.50. Seriously! It's navy blue and I have no idea what I'm going to make but with the variety of shawl patterns out there, I'm sure I can find something. I did meet the owner of Stitch DC and told her how much I loved the store. If I lived in DC, that would be the store I visited to hang out.
Knitting:
I've finished 62 repeats of the Pi Shawl edging, 34 to go. I am taking this with me on my trip to Hershey tomorrow. I've learned that it is wonderful train knitting. I have a feeling I'll finish the knitting on this over the weekend. I can't wait to block it!
I'm also working on a pair of socks in a purple colorway of Trekking sock yarn using the Retro Rib pattern from Interweave Knits. These will be for Michelle.
Sockapal2za:
Christine from Purls of Hope received her Unst socks from me and she seems to like them. I'm so glad.
I got an email from Illanna who made my socks and she said they just need to be mailed. I can't wait to receive them. Look how great they are! Hand-dyed! Awesome. I have a pair of handspun socks that I knitted from yarn I won from a contest about a year ago but none that are hand-dyed by the knitter! COOL! Illanna signed her name to her email and I could not resist looking at the list of people who had finished their socks. Lo and behold there was only one Illanna and she finished them months ago, just as she said in her email. According to Alison's weekly updates, Illanna was one of the first three people finished! I can't wait to get them!
Hershey:
I'm off to the CATS stitching festival in Hershey, PA tomorrow with my sister Cathy. We're staying at the Hershey Lodge overnight and I plan on gorging myself on chocolate while I'm there. We're even thinking about going to Hershey Park on Friday night as a part of their Katrina benefit. $15 to get in and all 10 roller coasters will be open! I am terrible about cross stitching as I don't seem to have the patience and attention to detail that it requires. I may pick up one or two little projects though and give it a go.
Not so happy, happy:
Big scandal in Philly right now as the report has just been released about the three year investigation into the Archdiocese about abuse by priests. The paper has a list of priests and their assignments. You can search by parish/school/office to see if there was a priest there who was an abuser. I was relieved to not see the names of anyone I know on the list. We know many, many priests and I was very afraid I would know someone on the list. I was glad that my home parish and my high school were not on the list. The parish I belong to now did have a priest on the list but he was there in the 1960s.
One of the most disturbing things about this whole situation is that the Church does not seem to be taking responsibility for it's role in the cover up. Cardinal Krol and Cardinal Bevilacqua are both accused of covering up the abuse. Cardinal Rigali is making excuses for them saying that they thought they were doing the right thing but that it would be handled very differently today. Thank God this is all coming to light and people are not being forced to suffer in silence anymore. It is disgraceful that these men were moved to new assignments with no warning to the new parishoners that they were in danger.
The Church does not seem to understand pedophilia, sadly. New regulations are coming out of the Vatican that are going to bar gay men from the Seminary. Men who are trying to live their lives according to what the Church has told them "you are not wrong or bad but your feelings and actions are"...these men are trying to follow the Church's teachings by taking a vow of celibacy. They are going to be denied that option. Why does the Church not recognize that sexual abuse is not about sex or sexuality? It is about power and control. And that more abusers are heterosexual than are homosexual. The abuse of young boys was because Priests had access to boys, not because the Priests were gay. It's not about that.
Many of you may know that I considered a vocation to the convent for many years. Ultimately, I decided that I could not be a representative of an organization/body that had such a policy on homosexuality. There are things the Church teaches that many Sisters do not agree with but they do good work and are able to reconcile their differences. I would have been able to do that with many of the Church's teachings but I decided that I would not be the face of bigotry towards gay people, not as a lesbian, vow of chastity or not.
I am so disenchanted with the Church. I don't even know what to say about it but I had to say something.
This article says that nearly 9 out of 10 white people surveyed say that race did not play a role in the response and rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina. I'm standing up proudly and loudly saying that I am that one white person out of 10 who thinks it played a role, and a big one.
I do not think that anyone was sitting in their office, rubbing their hands together and saying "ah, thank you God for wiping all those (insert slur here) off the planet." There may have been some people in my extended family who thought it or God forbid, said it aloud but I don't think anyone responsible for the rescue efforts said it. I just think that there is a different sense of urgency when the people affected are not contributors to your success. When they don't have means. When they don't have power. When they don't have a voice.
We have failed these people, the poor, time and time again and we failed them after Katrina.
There is subtle prejudice in the world and there is outright prejudice. There are people in our family who have said that while they love my sister, they can't respect her marriage because my brother-in-law is not white. There are people like those Michelle saw on the street yesterday yelling the n-word and honkey at each other because of a traffic incident. That is outright prejudice. More subtle prejudice happens when we say "why didn't those people leave" without finding out that they couldn't because they had no means. When we say "did you see how fat they are, why didn't they get off their asses and walk" because frankly, you just implied that "those people" were lazy and that's why they have no means even though you didn't come right out and say it.
I work with "those people" everyday. I work with single moms who leave their secretarial or customer service jobs and then go to class, who worry about their kids and how they will continue to provide for them, who want to set a good example and for their kids to have more than they had. There is a student I hold in my mind and heart every time I think about the victims of Katrina. I see her face and hear her voice because I know that if this had happened in Philly, she would have been one of the ones who couldn't get out, who would be in a shelter with her three small children wondering what to do now that they had lost the little they have. She comes to me to talk about time management, money management, tutoring. She is one of the many.
I was raised in an extended family and a neighborhood where if you were not Irish Catholic, you were other. The 25% of me that is Puerto Rican made me the most ethnic kid in my class, resulted in my sister being called a spic. I took a Filipino guy to my junior prom and remember the discussion I had with my parents about the fact that he wasn't white. There was a joking conversation with a warning tone about not bringing a black guy home and the other parent was immediately shocked. The comment was taken back quickly but the prejudice was there and it was stated. I didn't always have friends who were "different" from me. I don't have many now. But I do the best I can to be open, to be understanding, to make the world a better place. I am proud that my mom teaches preschool in a multi-ethnic neighborhood. That she is learning a little Spanish to speak to the parents. We can all do a little.
I don't know where this is all going. I just know that if more of those faces were white, if more of those faces were business men or pretty blonde girls, we wouldn't have left them for days. I'm glad that finally, the media is back to doing what they should have been doing for years: they are questioning and responding. At last, John Stewart is not the only person being critical of Bush.
I hope that in the coming weeks and months, we talk more about poverty. I hope we talk about how we can better reach out to those who have so little. Next week, I will spend four days celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Higher Education Act which, among other things, established programs that reach out to underserved populations and provide support for them to succeed at institutions of higher education. I will be with thousands of other professionals who work every day to help these students, kids through adults, better themselves. I know that there will be reference to those we are not serving, to those who don't see a college degree in their future. There will be questioning of how we can reach out to them and how we can do better.
We all need to ask ourselves what we can be doing better.
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