Taxes?

Juan Cole's blog, Informed Consent, talks sense about many things today, but I really like what he says about taxes in his discussion of Mitt Romney's "20% across the board cuts":

Taxes are used for common purposes. They pay for interstate highways, environmental cleanup, and all kinds of national infrastructure. If Mitt gets an extra $480,000 to keep, it is not free money. It is being subtracted from the common pot of money that pays for the things we need government to deliver to us. Mitt’s investments are in companies that need their goods trucked around the US, but now he’s cutting money to pay for road building and maintenance. He’s eating the nation’s seed corn.

It seems bizarre to me that many people can't see this about taxes.

3/13/12

3/12/12

3/04/12

The chef is always right!  Can't miss with this book.

Several months behind or...a new start?

Let's just say I blew last fall's 30-day photography challenge.  So I'm going to start my own.  I  love moonman.com, and I've been looking for a similarly small (2" or so) figure online, but this morning I realized I've had the perfect one all along:  a short Wallace figure residing in my apt for at least five, maybe 10 years.

Wallace is standing next to a bag of walnuts on the little kitchen wotsit table, which needs work.  It could hardly get more cluttered.  And one thing I learned when I shared an apartment in Chelsea owned by a moviemaker is that DETAIL is all.  There was never anything out of place in the moviemaker's home (not in the apartment, obviously, since she did not live there).  There was nothing in her rooms to mar the background if she wanted to film something spontaneously.  

Here Wallace is standing on a glass popcorn container looking at an MSF map of the world.  He's a bit out of focus, but maybe that's ok.

I have a lot of work to do to get everything, each layer, in proper focus, but that'll be the fun.  This will be my practice page for a while.  I need to give Wallace a bath, too.  He's been collecting dust for years.

Maybe three days behind schedule...??

I'm adjusting to a whole new schedule here...my son, Tom, has come to stay.  *:0)
Lots more cooking and trips to the grocery store!  So I'm behind in the 30 day photography challenge.  The next one I have to do is one of the hardest, too...the time-delay one--which means I have to learn a whole new way of working the camera.  It promises to be fun, but....jeez.  I need a little more time.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the Christmas tree in the Greyhound Bus Station on 1st St. NE.  No special technique needed for this.  And I used my cell phone.  Thought it was touching.

Day 15: Silhouette

Well, this isn't perzackly a silhouette, but it's a profile shot.  Taken with the Mac Photo Booth, which is lots of fun to play with. This is XE herself, none other.....

Day 14: Eyes

Do flowers have eyes?  These peeped up at me yesterday when I was walking back from downtown.  People set out pansies this time of year to bloom over the winter.  The first winter I was here, I was blown away by being able to see FLOWERS BLOOMING in the cold and snow.  These look like eyes to me....little bright eyes, straight on, no blinking.  "Here we are!!"  Love 'em.

Day 13: Me and 13 Objects.

This was not an easy challenge, but late in the day, I found just the thing:  My dad's American Legion cap from Gilbert C. Grafton Post #2 in Fargo, ND.  There are 12 little brass-colored tin attachments and one cap = 13 objects.  He got the attachments for his efforts in enrolling new members from 1955 through 1961.

The little figures represent special awards. Starting at the left, the little tin artillery gun says he was  "Gleason Gunner" for membership in 1958. Next to that, the little ship's wheel, "Burke Bo'sun" in 1961. The cloth patch names him a "Go Getter."  Next, "Moore Missileer" in 1959. At the very right end, he was awarded the "1960 Membership Spur."

It's hard for me to think of my dad as active in any sort of club, but he certainly was--after we had all left home (I was the last to depart, in 1954).  The only time in my childhood years when he was never home when he wasn't working was on Saturday. (Occasionally, after Gene left home, he bowled during the week for his NW Bell Telephone league, and he'd take me along and park me at the bar with a bottle of 7Up.)  Early Saturday morning, he'd be off hunting or fishing. He provided most of the meat we ate during the war years.  My mom's baked chicken was a treat. On Sunday, he went to church, and after a big Sunday dinner, he'd read the newspaper, then turn on the opera on the radio, lie down on the sofa in the living room, spread the newspapers over himself, and take a nap.

When I was about 10, we got our lake cottage, and he added golfing to his activities.  He was an athlete all his life.  I have a little trophy he won from the N.W.B.T. Golf Club in 1932.  It even has his name on it:  F. T. Dwyer.

My first day in first grade, we got to buy savings stamps for the war effort.  I plopped my quarter down with great pride, but when they asked me my father's name, I was stumped! (Hey, I was 5 years old!)  "Um....I dunno...(much thought)..I know! It starts with F!  Fryer!!"  He always signed his letters, "Your loving father, F. T. Dwyer."

Day 12 Sunset.....

Sunset today 4:47p, est.....not quite this late, but almost.....

taken from the metro platform that's but 4 minutes from my house....lots higher up, though.  

The Inner Object: Seeing Kandinsky

The Inner Object: Seeing Kandinsky

Day 11: Something blue...

Today's challenge is "Something blue."  The sky is gray, so I stayed inside and took a photo of the photo on my kitchen wall.  The event was Jo's birthday party at the Tombs in, hmm...2001? The three BLUE shirts look nice and are nicely arranged.  Not everybody at the table is deaf, but everyone communicates in ASL.  

Who are they, and where are they from?  Starting with the guy on the left in the blue checked shirt:  Dennis? from Ireland, Mary from Iowa, Jo from Ireland, M.E. from DC, ?? from DC, Sophie from Belgium, Susanna from Italy, Radka from Romania, and Patrick from DC.  I don't know who took the original photo--maybe one of the accommodating waitstaff at the Tombs?  Sorry I can't remember all the names better.  Susanna may be Rosanna.  

Day 10: Childhood Memories

Childhood memories, photographic.  I don't have anything left from my childhood except this little 2.5"x 2.5" book of 16 photos that my mother gave me a few years before she died.   I used to have a note to Santa that I wrote in the first grade or so--had it for many years, in fact, but that's gone. It read, in part, "Dear Santa, I have been a jood girl." (As IF....)  The little black doll I'm holding in the Omaha picture is gone, too. It was a present from Sister Mary Mark, my dad's oldest sister, who was a nun.  I had maybe three dolls when I was growing up, and they're all gone to doll heaven. I can't say I liked playing with dolls, although my mother always handed one to me for photos.

The picture on the left is of me in front of our big house in Omaha, my birthplace (and excuse me while I smile....It always tickles me that I was born in the middle of nowhere.)  The photo must have been taken when I was about 18 months, just before we all took off to live in Fargo.  My dad and the older boys took Pal, dad's black labrador hunting dog, in the car and drove up, stopping at Mom's brother Henry's farm in Canby, MN.  Mom, Paul, Gene, and I took the bus, I think. (Or maybe Paul went in the car, too.) There isn't a train running north & south between Omaha and Fargo.

The photo on the right is the first picture in the little book that I remember being taken.  It may have been around my birthday (snow on the ground).  I'm wearing a new green woolly blanket-material snowsuit that my mother made.  (This garment later went to my oldest niece, Susan, who came along just 10 years later.)  My nose was VERY COLD that afternoon when my mother hauled me out in front of the house (our first one in Fargo) and had me pose.  I am holding a little rubber Porky Pig, which I'm surprised didn't shatter in the cold.  I was glad to go back in the house when the photo session was over.

Day 9: Someone You Love

I didn't take this today, but this is a picture of two of the people I love best on the planet:  Erda (l.) and Cathy (r.).  Erda, if this can be believed, is even older than I am.  We've known each other since Hector was a pup.  She still lives in Iowa City, and she's still a magnificent gardener, though she's cutting back a bit.  Cathy and I have been co-workers and trouble-makers for going on 14 years!  Both of these women are intelligent, warm, fun, funny--gifts from the gods.  The picture is from Erda's most recent visit to DC last year.  Thanks, you guys, for being my friends.  I love you.

Day 8: Habit

If I have a habit that's lasted almost my whole life, it's making popcorn!  Popcorn is the bread of my life.  It's saved my bacon so many times--from major digestive upsets to hunger to the dark night of the soul.  I was hospitalized one time after becoming dehydrated from intestinal flu.  After 3 days with an IV stuck in my arm, I got sent home as cured.  Half an hour later, the unfortunate side-effect started up again, and on top of that I was starving. "To hell with this," I says, and I made a huge batch of popcorn.  Ate the whole thing, and whatever had ailed my gut vanished. 

When we raised it in our Victory Garden during WWII, we stored it on the cob in a big open wooden box at the end of the garage.  It was my job to rub the cobs together to release the kernels so that my mom could pop them in a big aluminum kettle.  She didn't use any oil or anything...just poured the corn into the kettle and turned on the heat.  We grew three kinds that I remember:  yellow, white, and dark blue.  I loved the dark blue best. It was a native variety and the tenderest and most delicious of all.  My mom always bought Jolly Time popcorn when we ran out of the home grown.  Jolly Time comes from Iowa, and her farmer relatives in Iowa probably sold their popcorn crops to Jolly Time.  She was very fond of it all. 

And so were we, meaning my brother Gene and I, who were the only two left at home in those days.  Mom poured on butter mixed half and half with Crisco, added salt, and we ate it right down to the bottom of the bowl.  Ha. We always ate the unpopped kernels, too, and licked the salt and butter off the bowl.

To be properly cured, it has to be dried after picking.  I grew popcorn one year in Bismarck. I hung the corn cobs with the husks peeled back from some hooks on the back porch.  Brilliant.  When I went out two days later, the wind had arisen during the night, rattled the cobs together, and the whole porch floor was covered with popcorn.  Yes, I did sweep it up and save it.  I didn't wash it exactly...I just picked out the leaves and blew the dust off. 

I get it now from Glut Coop in Mt. Rainier, a 20-minute bus ride away.  It costs something like 99c a pound, up from 79c a pound not too too long ago--gawd!  the inflation is gonna murther us all.  It's available every Sunday here in Takoma at the Farmers Market, but a jar of this size full would cost about $7 or $8!  I don't think so....not yet.  The jar in the picture, when full, holds about $1.40 worth.  

Day 7: Fruit

Nothing like a big bowl of fruit....I bought the apples last Saturday--seven of them--to make a pie.  My mother's pie recipe always called for seven apples.  I ate one, and one died on me through no fault of my own.  It must have had a worm or something.  So far, there's no pie.  But the kitchen faucet is finally fixed today, and I also have my own pie pan now.  So I think I'll make a Norwegian apple pie.  No crust on those babies!  EZ!!

Day 6--low angle photograph

OK, same boots, different day, different (low-angle) view.  Now let me tell you about these boots.  I bought them in the West Village maybe 10 years ago, and I'll never forget what happened when I walked out of the store and down the street wearing them.  A woman did a double-take when she saw me.  THAT had never happened before no matter what I was wearing--except, perhaps, for the habit when I was in the convent.

What happens now when I wear them is that my ankles don't wobble so much, and I'm about an inch and a half taller.  This means I can look a LOT of people in the eye now, and I have to tell you, it's a gas.  I feel bigger and stronger and, yes, younger.  It's FUN walking in these things.  There is enough variety in the garb one sees every day here, so nobody does any double-takes now.  Still, I feel like a badass, and I love it.

day five of the 30 day photography challenge

I started posting these 30-day-photography-challenge photos on XE, but on second thought, I decided this blog was the proper venue.  So day five (yesterday) was "high-angle" photograph.  It was almost dark when I remembered this, so I took a photo of my boots from above.  And of course I used my Blackberry.  Hm.

Then I noticed the shadow the trash can and the bus flag was making.  That's sort of high-angle, too, innit?  Not really really high, but higher than if I was taking a photo looking straight at it on the same level.  Hmph.  I never said it was high art.  It's high practice!