Perspective...

Line of Sight : Chesapeake Bay : Photo copyright: Janet M Kincaid, 4/2008

Space: The Final Frontier...

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is currently doing a stint aboard the International Space Station, is tweeting photos of the Blue Planet from outer space. This has me noodling an idea for a photo project I may undertake. Stay tuned to this real estate. In the meantime, enjoy Astronaut Hadfield's photos of the place more than 7 billion of us call home.

America: No Longer the Greatest Nation on Earth?

A clip from Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom is currently making the rounds on the Internet. I haven't seen a full episode of the show myself, though it is on my want-to-see list. This clip echoes many of the thoughts I've had in recent years about my home country. Are we really the greatest nation on Earth? Don't get me wrong. I love my country and I'm pleased to be from the United States, but I'm also seriously concerned by what I see and hear in our nation. 

We seem to have lost our enthusiasm and curiosity for discovery. We belittle those who seek intelligence and intellect as elitist. We get our news from sound bites and express our opinions through memes. Our reputation as a people who can be truly compassionate and giving is undermined by our incongruous politics and excessive consumerism. 

Yes, we have been and can be a great nation, but at the moment, I'm not so sure. And the question is, how do we fix it?

First World Problems

And speaking of greatness: living in countries where we want for nothing, how many of us find ourselves put out by what we consider to be inconveniences? The other day, I was bemoaning my desire for cinnamon toast, but I had the wrong bread. 

The wrong bread. The wrong bread?! I had bread. Shouldn't that have sufficed? In some parts of the world, people are lucky simply to have bread, if they're even lucky to have that. And yet, here I sit in my warm, dry, structurally sound apartment with a view of the French Alps, living on the edge of one of the richest cities in the world, complaining about not having the right bread.

Water is Life put together this video of people in developing countries -- places where there is real need. Where poverty, starvation, and disease are the norm -- reading first world problems. Many of them are jarring. Each of them begs us to have some perspective and get our priorities straight.

A Final Bit of Food for Thought, So to Speak...

From Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm in Virginia: "The notion that we could have a functional planet if people did not eat animals indicates a profound ignorance of ecology. Animals would soon overpopulate the earth... Plant destruction could lead to population collapse. Erosion and soil destruction would follow... With little vegetation, temperatures increase, the rain stops, and the earth is destroyed....

"I would certainly hope that anyone placing animals on such a high pedestal would not spend more on his or her dog or cat than on making sure hungry children in Africa [or America] got fed. This is a litmus test of priorities. Americans spend more on vet care for their dogs and cats than the entire continent of Africa spends on healthcare. As a culture we have Bambified ourselves into foolishness, and it's reflected in our values and day-to-day activities." (Sowing Dissent: Lunatic Farmer Joel Salatin Digs In. Tracy Frisch, The Sun Magazine, October 2012, Issue 442, p 9.)

Wow. Or, In Which I Stand Amazed.

When you live overseas and you don't get the news in English on tv, you have to rely on things like World Radio Switzerland or online news to know what's going on at home. It was with sadness that I read yesterday about the men and women at Fort Hood who were attacked and killed by one of their own. I've been reading some of the coverage this morning in the Washington Post and these two paragraphs, in particular, struck me:

Within moments of the [exchange of gun]fire, [Police Officer Kimberly] Munley and [Major Nidal] Hasan lay on the ground near each other bleeding badly. Hasan's pistols and several magazines of ammunition lay splayed near his body. A soldier rushed up to Munley and fashioned his belt into a tourniquet to stem the bleeding from her thigh before an ambulance ferried the officer to the base hospital.

Medics stripped off Hasan's camouflage top and began to treat his bullet wounds and pump plasma into his body to keep him alive. (Emphasis added.) Hasan and three other badly injured soldiers were flown by helicopter to Scott & White Hospital in nearby Temple, Tex.

It's that highlighted sentence that blew me away. It didn't matter that Hasan was the man who wreaked carnage, a comrade in arms who betrayed his brothers. He was, in that heinous instant, a fellow solider who was wounded and down and others stepped in and followed through on their duty.

They could have left him there to die.

They could have picked up one of his guns and shot him dead.

They could have done any number of things, but instead they fought to save his life.

*****

My thoughts are with the men and women at Fort Hood and with all our brave men and women who stand at post every day. And my thoughts are with Major Hasan and his family, too. What a sad day.

SHE LIVES!

Jefferson's Monticello--the first stop on our road trip

Yes, it's true. The rumors about my continued existence are factual. I'm still alive. And still on the road.

For those who are curious--morbidly or otherwise--we left Washington on April 18. Three weeks and a day later, we're still on the road. Thus far, we've been to the following places:

Headstones in the abbey cemetery at
St. Bernards in Cullman, Alabama

Charlottesville, VA; Asheville, NC; Moore, SC; Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; Meridian, MS; New Orleans and Vacherie, LA; San Antonio, Johnson City, Coleman, Glen Cove, Midland, and Odessa, TX; Carlsbad, Santa Fe, Las Trampas, Taos, and Acoma/Sky City, NM; Flagstaff, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon, AZ; Bakersfield, Yosemite, Cordelia, Fairfield, Concord, Berkeley, and San Francisco, CA.

The red rocks of Sedona, Arizona

Along the way, we've stayed with friends and family, as well as in a few Best Westerns and Motel 6s. In South Carolina, we stayed with my high school buddy, Senga Campbell and her partner Joni Casper. In Birmingham, we stayed with fellow photoblogger Virginia Jones.

The Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico

In New Orleans, we walked Bourbon Street and haven't been the same since. In Coleman and Glen Cove, we met my paternal grandmother's 93-year old sister, saw the farmstead where my grandmother and her four siblings grew up, and visited the graves of my great-grandparents and my great aunts. In Flagstaff, we stayed with Maya's parents.

My former mission companion and good friend,
Heidi Chartrand

In Bakersfield, we caught up with the only companion from my stint as an LDS missionary with whom I stay in contact--Heidi Chartrand. In Cordelia, we visited with my 95-year old grandmother and found her be more lucid and healthy than her 93-year old sister back in Texas.

Peppers a la Rothko in Taos, New Mexico

Over in Berkeley, I caught up with my dear friend and soon-to-be mother Thea Hillman. Then we went to the city and had dinner at my all time favorite restaurant in the whole wide world: Ti Couz. And last night and tonight, we've stayed with friend and fellow blogger Sideon and his partner Toz.

The water tower and windmill on the old farmstead where
my grandmother grew up in Glen Cove, Texas

By the end of the trip we'll have also been to Navarro, Fort Bragg, and Trinidad, CA; and Florence and Portland, OR. In the process of the last leg, we'll be staying with Cele on the Oregon Coast and seeing one of my Scary Feminist friends, JaneAnne, in Portland.

Church at Las Trampas, New Mexico

It's been a great trip so far. We kicked it off by seeing Jefferson's Monticello. That led us to the Biltmore Estate and Gardens--home of the Vanderbilts. Then we stopped in Atlanta for 15 minutes to see Stone Mountain. Virginia took us to see the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, Alabama.

Shan Little who makes art out of scrap metal

In Mississippi, we met a lesbian named Shan who makes art out of 55 gallon drum lids. In New Orleans, I was propositioned by a tuba player and we visited Oak Alley Plantation where we watched a young man propose to his girlfriend.

Lipan Point at the Grand Canyon

We've seen the Alamo, Carlsbad Caverns, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and two or three pueblos. We've had great hotel rooms and utter dives, fabulous wifi and crappy wifi. We've stayed with friends who have kids or grandkids and friends who have dogs and cats.

El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

I have a stack of unwritten postcards just dying for a home. If you'd like one, email me your address and I'll send you one. In the mean time, hope you enjoy this short collection of photos from the last three weeks. If you want to see more than this, visit D.C. Confidential.

My 95-year old grandmother

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential

Back in the Saddle

Good mornnnnnning Washington, D.C.!

Yes, I'm back. Haven't written for ages. Don't know what I'm going to write about, so I'm gonna go with the flow.

I've been on the road and seen some kewl stuff.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame: First Stop on the Road Trip

Like the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Custom chopper a la Lincoln.
Click image to enlarge and check out the details.

Or, Lincoln's Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

The Nauvoo Temple at dusk.

Or, the Mormon's newly reconstructed temple in Nauvoo, Illinois. (For the record, I behaved myself like the good little Mormon girl I use to be and I did not mock. It was hard.)

A loom in the woolen mill in the Amana Colonies, Iowa.

Or, maybe the Amana Colonies in Amana, Iowa, which we thought were Amish, but in fact were German Pietists. Don't ask me what a Pietists is. I don't know. I do know they aren't called that because they eat pie.

America's Corniest Destination. Seriously.

Or, the Corn Palace Convention Center and Visitors Bureau in Mitchell, South Dakota, where the exterior facade changes each year and is made entirely of corn cobs and husks. True story.

The Badlands are bad, man. Like way cool, dude. Check it out.

Then there's the Badlands outside of Wall, South Dakota. If Disney had a miniature version of the Grand Canyon and you sat in a little car to tour it, that would be the Badlands.

Wall Drug: Featured on the Today Show, GMA,
People magazine, blah, blah, blah...

Speaking of Wall, South Dakota, there's Wall Drug. A veritable emporium of... of... of... schtuff. Lots and lots of schtuff. Good donuts, though.

The Big Boys: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln.

Or, how about Mount Rushmore. Coolest memorial outside of Washington, D.C.

Not so much into road trips?

So, what to write about? What to write about?

I could write about how badly the movers damaged my belongings. Or, the dude on the ferry to Whidbey Island, Washington, who did a weird little jig in an attempt to discreetly(?) readjust his nuts. Maybe I could blather on about the air raid sirens in western Pennsylvania that woke us up at 4:30 in the morning. Or, how about how I left the park ranger at Mount Rushmore speechless when I asked him if he could point out to me "this memorial thingie that's suppose to be here."

Nah? Dullsville? How's about I just shut up and let you look at the pictures from my trip? If you want to see more, visit D.C. Confidential.

Oh, and just in case you missed the memo, I'm moving to Langley, Washington, for a year. Maybe more. We'll see. I'll be leaving town for good around April 12 or so. I have feelings about this, but I'm not sure where to start, so give me a while. I'm sure I'll find a way to articulate them shortly.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential/Janet Kincaid