Friday, January 30, 2015

Link Log for January 30

Organized by categories: Politics, Knitting, Books, Food, Quotes, an Obituary, Rock Music, and Humanity...

Rock Music Video 

On behalf of a band called Dirty Unkuls, someone Twittered a music video to me. As luck would have it, I'm online from the Dog Sanctuary, on a computer that's pretty near to junk but can play sound as long as it's not loud enough to upset the dogs. So I tried to play it...and Twitter crashed...and after an hour, when it recovered enough to do anything, the computer declared the video "unplayable." Drat. But then Kathleen Wallace posted this link to an Aerosmith video...Do you readers like Aerosmith? (Warning: she says his tribute to Boston made her cry.)

http://katyladysjourney.blogspot.com/2015/01/katys-freebie-for-day-aerosmith-dream.html?

Quotes 

"Pray. Counsel with the Lord in all of your doings."--David Bednar

"Love often says don’t tweet. Love often says don’t write. Love often says if you must rebuke, then do so in person and with touch" AB Welby

Humanity, or Why I Really Am a Liberal, Though Not a Leftist 

When I was growing up, there was an unofficial color war on in the U.S., and if you didn't fear and hate the other color, the word for you was "liberal." (There were worse words.) Regular readers already know about my multiethnicity and the multiethnicity of my close friends. About some other things I'm pretty conservative, but about the garbage of "race" thinking I am absolutely and forever a liberal. Lloyd Marcus, otherwise a conservative, discusses his "liberal" heritage here:


Obituary 

Elizabeth Barrette, a mutual e-friend, wrote this obituary poem for Patricia Wilkins (widow of Peter Haden, wife of George Elgin), the writer known to cyberspace as Ozarque and to real publishers as Suzette Haden Elgin. 


I once listed her, along with Bonnie Prudden and Grandma Bonnie Peters, as "mother-mentors" of my life and work. That might have surprised all three of them, but it's true; what I've done, and hoped to do, with my serious work and writing, is a continuation of what they've done. Hence my comment on the poem linked above. Ozarque left a lot of work for her friends and admirers to carry on.

I'll try to do an Official Memory Post on Sunday. For now, I'll share this memory: She was the pen friend cited as "the Arkansas correspondent" on the George Peters FacTape about Bill Clinton--the one that debunked several major lies about the then-President, but did not recommend voting for him. Ozarque, however, was loyal to President Clinton and described herself, during those years, as a yellow-dog Democrat (the kind who, according to an old joke, would vote for a yellow dog if all the humans in the county were Republicans). So it was pleasant to see later that, despite philosophical differences, she was equally loyal to Mike Huckabee as a fellow Arkansan and a candidate. 

She wasn't perfect; there are tiny pockets of human vanity, inconsistency, and error in her blog, as there are in any blog or diary that's kept honestly for a long time. She was nevertheless one of the toughest, smartest, and kindest women I've ever known. She will be sorely missed.

Food 

Bean soup weather, for sure. (Profound empathy to snowed-in, blacked-out Yankees if they don't have wood stoves on which to simmer beans, right about now...snow is good insulation, but nobody should have to depend completely on electric heat.)

http://marshasspot.blogspot.com/2015/01/frugal-friday-with-marsha-great.html

This is the right sort of day for collard greens, the ones that need to be simmered slowly (if you have a wood stove, they can go on the side off the firebox, beside the beans). I saw this fresh take on the classic recipe yesterday, but didn't make the time to do anything with it. Lo and behold, somebody retweeted it, so it popped up again today.

http://sheownsit.com/collard-greens-collard-greens-not-kale/

Books 

I liked Saving Fish from Drowning too; I think I've liked all of Amy Tan's books--at least all that I've read.

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/the-monday-book-saving-fish-from-drowning-by-amy-tan/

A new (nonfiction!) book by Jerry B. Jenkins I'd like to read:

http://jerry-jenkins.com/2015/01/27/the-matheny-manifesto-part-1/

And a new collection in search of publishing funds, ditto...this link is especially commended to the interest of Garrison McDavid.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/castles-in-spain

Knitting 

There's still time to knit a "spring" cardigan with rings of popcorns forming a flattering vertical line on the fronts.

http://www.pompommag.com/product/pre-order-issue-12-spring-2015-print-digital/

Politics 

Links and my comments on bills, including one in the U.S. Congress, are at http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382 .

Read bills yourself (and see how you like it!) at https://www.popvox.com/ and/or http://lis.virginia.gov/.

Virginia Legislature streaming video starts Monday. Virginians are welcome to watch it; a Delegate Twittered this link in advance, so those who find it easy to watch video can make sure their computers are set up for the show:

http://virginia-house.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=3

There are things about which I think Sarah Palin is right, and things about which she's merely right-wing. But here's one thing about which Lloyd Marcus is right. The Old Left and Old Right should have dissolved by now--I was hoping they would have done--but they persist, and their positions have not shifted to the extreme left, as left-wingnuts hope. If anything, the "moderate mainstream" position is less favorable to socialism than it was before the Berlin Wall came down. The Cold War ended. We won. Why would we take the side that didn't win, now? Far left = Bill Clinton's policies. Lunatic left = anything leftward from there. Centrist = W Bush or John McCain.

http://www.lloydmarcus.com/2015/01/sarah-palin-right-go-offense-tout-conservatism/

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