We’re really going to have to dig in our heels if we’re going to avoid losing the ground we have already earned in the battle for choice, and I think it is important to take a moment and think about that this year. Let’s also choose our language carefully and do our best to find common ground with those who seem to be the opposition. No one wants to kill babies. That fact seems to get lost in all the so-called “discussion.” This conflict isn’t about killing babies vs. not killing babies, because most of the pregnancies that are currently ended by legal abortions would not have continued to term if abortions were illegal. Rolling back Roe v. Wade would do nothing more than make abortions something that rich women get in other countries, while poor women return to the backalleys and women with pregnancy complications are left to suffer and die. This issue is about women’s health and our right to control our own bodies. We women are much more than just our wombs and are quite capable of running our own lives. Many men seem to be completely oblivious to those facts (or deliberately obtuse) and unfortunately, they’re the ones who are currently in charge. So, until more reasonable, compassionate souls take back our government, please do what you can to oppose those who would take away our right to choose. And let’s remember that the real pro-lifers support our schools, sex education, universal health care, prenatal care for the poor, social services, gay rights and responsible environmentalism while opposing the destruction of war and the death penalty.
(in case you’re wondering, the photo is from the Planned Parenthood march across the Brooklyn Bridge in August, on the day before the protest of the RNC convention)
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I had a minor disaster yesterday and lost most of the bird pictures I’ve taken in the past week, so here’s one pulled from last week’s leftovers: the chickadee. I see a lot of these at my window, though they’re hard to photograph because they flit about so much. Another bird that has been even more elusive for my camera is the kinglet, which I see occasionally but I haven’t been able to get a decent shot of one yet. Their movements are almost hummingbird-like and they’re even smaller than the chickadee. I’ve spotted the little red splotch on the cap of one or two of the birds that have come by, but it’s almost as if they can turn the red on and off. I haven’t seen one in the past few days, but I hope I’ll have more opportunities to watch them before they head back north in the spring.
update: Yay! The kinglet is back! After being away for a while, he/she/they reappeared this afternoon while I was on the phone with my mother (who, as it happens, is a long-time birder).
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I hope you’re not getting tired of my look back at the year. Here’s a photo from a July trip to New York, for a family gathering upstate and then a quick swing through NYC. This is a picture of one of my very talented brothers, during an exciting evening spent hanging out in Times Square. Our bartender that night was a talkative guy who was afraid he would get fired before the election because of his ourspoken views about the war. He was, briefly, pretty pissed off that evening because he’d been stiffed by some very healthy-looking kids who spent quite a while sitting at the bar — they were very rah-rah Iraq war, but when the bartender (who was a Desert Storm vet) asked them why they weren’t over there fighting, the kids got kind of cranky. There was also a lot of excitement outside the window that evening as a drama unfolded after a bomb scare at the local subway stop. More ambulances, fire trucks and police cars than I’ve ever seen outside of a Blues Brothers movie converged on the street outside. We ended up having to take an alternate route back to lower Manhattan, as the subway line we’d taken up to Times Square was still shut down when we headed home for the night. In this shot, my brother is checking New York One (local 24-hour news) on the TV for the lowdown about the police drama outside. I’m not sure what kind of drink this was — some sort of martini, I think — but its color and the light pleased me. My brother, DH, a very dear and clever cousin and I hatched up a great idea for a screenplay that night, but we still need to get most of it down on paper…
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Here’s another image from the year. This one is from the trip we took to France at the beginning of June. One of the highlights of the trip for DD was our serpentine stroll through the catacombs far below the streets of Paris.
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Here’s a bonus bird for Hanakwanzasolstivalimas. It’s another tufted titmouse, but this one’s an action shot!
We’ve been having a lovely weekend. We spent yesterday evening at the home of some awesome family friends. The dinner and conversation were wonderful and the dog provided bonus entertainment. We slept in a bit today and opened a few presents this morning. We’ll be cooking a dinner with yorkshire pudding later, but are mostly planning on a lazy day with relaxing fun and movies and books and naps and whatever.
I’m very pleased with the way this xmas is turning out. While ignoring the more annoying aspects of this, the shrillest of all American holidays, we’ve been enjoying the fellowship of friends and family and are finding the time off from the work/school grind to be restorative. As DD’s friends continue to come and go, I appreciate seeing them even more than ever as the current flurry of college planning reminds me that many of them will be leaving Chattanooga in the coming year. And I’m enjoying catching up with more remote loved ones on the phone. All this, and we still have the rest of the break to enjoy! I think this nebulous week between xmas and the new year is one of the coolest weeks on the calendar. The consumer-fest is over, but many of us won’t have to swing fully back into gear until January, so the rest and fellowship can continue without the all the stress and noise of recent weeks. I hope that you are finding satisfaction in this holiday season as well.
Peace on Earth.
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I took a lot of pictures of birds in the past week and have been having a hard time trying to decide which one to put up here. But since this is the top choice of my daughter, and because she deserves far better than she’s been getting from someone she thought was a friend, without further ado, I give you the tufted titmouse. Small consolation, but there ya go.
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2004 has been, and continues to be, a tumultuous year. Last January seems to be such a very, very long distance away. When this year began, Howard Dean was the frontrunner for the democratic nomination and my office was still on the upper floor of my employer’s house. Over the course of the year, I spent a week in Paris, went to New York City twice, gathered with my family on my uncle’s farm, and continued to enjoy Chattanooga and its people and environs.
I’m not a big fan of the christmas holiday, so as I observed the solstice yesterday my thoughts sort of skipped over the xmas thing and moved on to New Year’s. Looking forward is a wonderful thing, and reflecting back on the year past can be cleansing, if a little bittersweet. The Japanese have a tradition called bonenkai — parties held with the purpose of leaving the old year’s worries and troubles behind. It’s a nice idea. Here in the States, we tend to focus on the clean slate of the new year without giving too much thought to clearing out old baggage. Today I’ve found myself starting that process of looking back and reflecting on the time passed. I want to give some thought to what I’d like to leave behind with the old year (besides the weight I’ve gained since I quit smoking), but at the moment, my thoughts are turning to the many memories of 2004 that I’ll cherish. One of the highlights of my year was the trip to NYC in August to join the protests when the Republicans had their convention at Madison Square Garden. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I brought back countless images of so many people who put their hearts and souls into that peaceful expression of free speech. This little girl is one of them. Her sign says simply, “Butterflies Against Bush.”
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This chubby cardinal pops by the tree outside my window here on a regular basis. The tree is a bit far away for my camera’s lens, so I was pleased to get this shot.
In an effort to get more birds to visit, and to get them closer to my window, I put up a bird feeder this past week, which turned out to be more of an adventure than I expected. I never got around to getting our feeders up after we moved to this house several years ago, so I dug them out over the weekend. Unfortunately, they didn’t keep very well in our damp, non-climate controlled storage room, and I had to toss most of them. So, I made the trip out to Wild Birds Unlimited and got a tube feeder with a tray on the bottom and some seed, plus some suet for the little cage that managed to survive the perils of the storage room.
The first couple of days saw a discouraging lack of activity, but this morning has brought a dramatic increase in visitors. So far today I’ve seen lots of chickadees and tufted titmice, a carolina wren, what I think was a nuthatch, a red-headed woodpecker, some sort of small reddish bird that didn’t stick around long enough for me to get an ID, and maybe a bird or two that I’ll have to look up in the book (do we get waxwings in these parts?). Now we’ll see if my mad photographer skillz are up to the challenges presented by the light at this time of year…
UPDATE: a hairy wookpecker just made an appearance on my trellis and I’m not getting ANY work done this morning.
another UPDATE: the reddish bird came back and I think it’s a purple finch.
CORRECTION: I’m going through and adding links for the birds, and what I thought was a red headed woodpecker was probably something else — maybe a hairy woodpecker — and I think what I thought was a hairy woodpecker was probably a downy woodpecker. Hopefully they’ll all be back so I can figure it out for sure.
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I took this photo over near the dam a few months ago. I’ve been trying to snag photos of birds in the tree outside my window this week, but so far I’ve only managed to entertain DD with my rather comedic efforts.
Thankfully, other bird bloggers have been far more successful than I at capturing regular images of local birds. I’ll keep at it…
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Here’s a photo that could potentially freak out a few people who watch the talking heads on TV…
But, no, it’s Chattanooga’s own Ann Coulter and she’s running for mayor. I went to her campaign kickoff this evening at the Imperial Ballroom at the Choo-Choo and there was a very impressive crowd there. I’m not sure who I’m going to support in the mayor’s race yet, but she’s in the running.
In the meantime, the OTHER Ann Coulter (the one with the adam’s apple) has gone off her meds again, and this time, Canada has caught her deranged eye (thanks again to SistersTalk):
Reading Coulter’s lingo, she’s hoping Canada will be punished severely by the United States, as it’s been officially declared an enemy of the state. That woman has some serious psychological issues.
That’s putting it mildly. Go read Sister’s exerpts or the Media Matters version, with Tucker Carlson also taking a turn at the Canada-bashing. It’s pretty hilarious until you realize that Coulter isn’t trying to be funny. Then it’s just scary.
Also, for a friend who was surprised when this came up this evening: if you’re an atheist, don’t bother running for office in Tennessee. You’re not allowed.
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