molly likes michelle

despite my distance from the US, i am keenly interested in the american election. i read extensively online and in our daily newspaper and we get the daily show with only one day's delay. i'll admit my viewpoint is filtered through the brilliance of jon stewart and his team. but that's mostly because it fits my political leanings anyway. liberal political leanings which have only been strengthened by 14 years of living in europe.

i have closely followed both last week's republican convention and this week's democratic one. it strikes me that there is a marked difference. last week's felt far more mean-spirited, but i will admit that the democrats have a hard time overcoming the bleak economic picture. it has been a hard slog, overcoming the mess that obama was handed by the dangerous war-mongering buffoonery of the bush administration (which people seem to forget), and admittedly, things aren't there yet.

molly and i watched both michelle obama's speech and bill clinton's speech in their entirety today. molly really liked michelle. and so did i. i found what she had to say beyond reproach and have been pleasantly surprised to see that there has been little criticism of her (at least from what i could find online). bill showed, once again, his particular brand of authentic charisma. he really is something. i loved the shots of chelsea sitting next to steve jobs' widow (interesting to see what that was about), looking proudly on at her father. he struck the right notes - he was honest, but real and convincing. and who else could make you listen, riveted, as he talked about medicare block grants? seriously, that man is a gifted speaker.

but honestly, i worry about the political rhetoric in the US. it seems so filled with hate these days. so polarized and extreme. things that don't seem like they are relevant issues - rape, abortion, gay marriage - to whether a person is qualified to be the president take up the forefront. my impression is that the democrats are at least trying to talk about the economy and the future in a more hopeful way, rather than spending time on lies (see Paul Ryan's speech), misrepresentations (again, Paul Ryan) and issues (see that asshole from Missouri) that are irrelevant.

but i think what's contributing to making this election seem like the worst, most vitriolic one ever is actually facebook. i'm simply astounded at some of my facebook friends. i mean, i knew a few of them watched fox news, but i wasn't clear on how much they believed it and how filled with hate they seem to be. and i simply don't understand it. how one can be in a same-sex relationship and work for the government and still be rabidly against the democratic platform i am at a loss to understand. and don't even get me started on those who simply cannot possibly afford to be republicans...

but bill's speech put the thoughts i was beginning to have about changing my passport (for all of my complaints about denmark, at least i don't ever feel i have to be ashamed of it and i've felt ashamed of america on more than one occasion recently as i watched or read the news (or the olympic coverage)) out of my head for now. but time will tell, i guess. and in the meantime, all i can do is vote (as many times as i can - that being the advantage of being registered to vote in chicago). 

i hope you will too. and when you do, i hope it will be for the good guys. because they're not yet done cleaning up the mess bush left.

let them drink bacon vodka or observations on the current state of america

just a few observations from our time in the states. it's funny how time away makes what was once familiar seem strange, tho' i simply don't recall some of this stuff, so maybe it's new in the past decade or so...

~ there's a real obsession with anti-bacterial hand cleaners. in bathrooms, in the cleaning product aisle, on the dish soap, little purse-size bottles. apparently americans are really, really scared of bacteria. and i wonder if it's not contributing to illness and allergies.

~ there's a lot of fake stuff - especially fake sweeteners and fake creamers. i just wanted some ordinary half & half in my coffee and that was a rare commodity in many convenience stores, tho' 5 sweetened, artificial flavors of carnation wanna-be cream(er) were on offer.

~ waitresses introduce themselves, "hi, i'm shelly, i'll be your server." do i really need this information? do people actually take note of it and remember their server's name?

~ the lighting is really, really depressing in shopko, k-mart and even macy's. what's the purpose of that? wouldn't good lighting move more merchandise? how can these stores be so off on this important detail?

~ walmart's new logo doesn't hide that they're still pure evil.

~ enormous, chernobyl (as in possibly irradiated), giant fruit and vegetables - peaches bigger than a softball, same with plums and the leeks, as big around as my calves, i tell you. we also had a 50 pound watermelon. talk about having to pee after that...

~ only in the states could you overhear a casual conversation at the airport between two waiting passengers on the merits of the M16 vs. the M4.

~ struck by how people who have BEEN there, still pronounce iraq "eye-rack."

~ a shocking lack of recycling. i had a little shudder of horror every time i saw a bottle or can in the ordinary garbage can.  this is part of why the US is consuming far more than its share of resources.

~ vodka that comes in bacon, marshmallow, cake or cookie dough flavors. i can see these are produced in france, but still, they apparently know what the american market craves.

~ direct marketing (long ads on television and in magazines) of prescription meds. man, that must drive doctors nuts.

~ no television show can be watched or enjoyed with any sense of continuity because it's constantly broken up with ads. i remember when i first came to denmark, it was agony for me to watch an whole episode of the x-files without commercial break, because i was so accustomed to the release of tension the commercials brought with them. now, i can hardly stand to watch television in the states. and don't even get me started on the shameful coverage of the olympics by nbc, i'm still not over that.

~ automatic-flush toilets. these possibly symbolize everything that's currently wrong with america, not to mention scaring the living daylights out of the user. apparently people cannot even be trusted to flush the toilet on their own these days.

~ interesting how with two acts of terrorism committed while i was there - one in a crowded movie theatre in colorado and one at a sikh temple in wisconsin - that i never heard them referred to as terrorism. it seems that word is now reserved only for acts committed by muslim extremists. if you ask me, both of those maniacs were also terrorists. 

~ car design has truly gone awry. i talked about this a little bit after my visit two years ago, but it's only gone downhill. even old design stalwarts like mercedes have given up and started making what appears to be a chevy impala with a mercedes logo. it's sad, really.

lest you think i only observed the negatives, i'll be back soon with a list of positives. because there are also good things about the land of my birth. you just have to look for them a little harder.

aggressive christianity

being in the states for a few weeks, i was struck by the visible increase in christian fundamentalism all around in the upper midwest. there have always been a few anti-choice signs here and there, and my hometown of 1300 has 12 churches, but there are more and more aggressive bible verses lining the highways and byways and christianity just seems to be much more in your face.

but i found this nail-studded cross west of the town where i grew up most disturbing. apparently, with 12 churches in a town of 1300, the youth groups have banded together into one and they erected this cross on the edge of a cornfield west of town. the large, rusty nails represent the sins of the young people in town.

and it strikes me as extremely violent and aggressive. and i wonder how a bunch of kids in small town south dakota can possibly have so many sins. what on earth are they? sex? drinking? playing hooky from school, the odd joint? hello, these are normal teenage issues - not giant nails on a cross. and to display them in such a harsh way, what good can that possibly do?

i'm more than a little worried about the aggressive tone christianity has taken on in the US in the years of my chosen exile. it seems to me not all that different from the sort of fundamentalist leaning of which all of islam is accused because a few choose to be extreme. when extremism comes to a small town in south dakota, what do we have left?

for more on this, read what frank bruni says about michele bachman and her ilk of the religious right here.

olives may contain pits

when i realized this afternoon that there was a delay in the broadcast of the opening ceremonies of the london olympics, it royally pissed me off. it strikes me as yet another symptom of a society far too focused on the wrong things. a late afternoon live broadcast didn't fit with the needs of the network to capture those advertising dollars, so they delayed it by several hours and completely destroyed the continuity by breaking for ads every 5 minutes. and the play-by-play by the anchors - simplistic, insufficiently-researched and well, moronic. and of course, the first 5 minutes had to be spent speculating as to possible terrorism. shameful.

what has happened to this country?  signs in the grocery store, warning that olives have pits. do people really not know this? are we so far from where our food comes from? i do realize that it's also lawsuit avoidance, but shouldn't we also be worried that it's come to that?

i've been here a week and a half and i'm dumbfounded. i can't stand to watch a news broadcast - they're over-dramatic and under-informed and carry little or no news. the speculations as to the motives of the madman killer in colorado have oddly become "the truth" about him, tho' he hasn't said a word. ordinary people quote glen beck and bill o'reilly and fox "news" as if they tell the truth about everything from school testing to gun control and health care. there's no critical thinking in evidence, apparently no one reasons for themselves (at least not out loud) and worst of all, there's no outrage over this.

where is the outrage?

well, i'm outraged, but at least i get to leave again. and leave again i will. tho' i will express my outrage with my vote in november. it's the least i can do.

sunday morning politics

back when i was in high school, we went every autumn to the world wide paint horse congress in wichita, kansas. as you probably know, wichita is a hotbed of rabid anti-abortion folks and other than the big horse show at the kansas coliseum and the hearty meals at the red barn inn, that's what i remember of the place. we'd drive past planned parenthood clinics where protestors with graphic signs verbally (and possibly physically) assaulted innocent folks who were going in for their yearly check-ups. it always raised a defiant feeling in me, making me wish i needed an abortion, just so i could march past those people (who i am quite sure were not at all prepared to take responsibility for unwanted babies, should they not be aborted) and exercise my choice over my own body.  i've mellowed since then and while i'm glad i never needed an abortion, i'm glad that the choice was there for me if i had.

this whole debate over same-sex marriage actually triggers a similar response in me. tho' i am a happily married heterosexual woman, the whole rabid righteousness of the debate makes me want to find a nice girl and settle down.

taking a stand

sometimes you just have to take a stand. i've just unsubscribed from a number of blogs because they don't allow sharing on pinterest. this wasn't an easy decision, because it includes blogs i love, like spirit cloth and resurrection fern. now that pinterest has responded to the masses and changed their terms of service, there is no reason for this. if you're blogging your work  - you're putting it out there to be seen (unless i've completely misunderstood blogging). one of the very best ways to be seen is on pinterest. so for me, to hoard one's blog (or flickr) photos is to completely go against the very sharing spirit that is blogging. and i won't be part of it anymore. and while i respect the right of artists to protect their work, i would rather do without those blogs in my reader than support an unsharing spirit. and let's face it, a photo of the work is not the work itself, so you might argue that the work is quite safe.

to add to my righteous indignation (something of which i'm not proud, as righteousness is one of my biggest pet peeves), a couple of the people whose blogs i unfollowed (i haven't listed them all above) are ON pinterest, pinning away themselves! the nerve! they have no problem curating the work of others, but don't want theirs to be curated. how does that work?

i personally have received so much more (exposure and even income) from a spirit of sharing and openness than i would ever have gotten had i blocked everything and kept it all to myself.  my photos wouldn't be part of an article on slate or a lithuanian tourism website or in a ted talk or featured on apartment therapy or available on getty images (those are the only ones that i changed from a creative commons non-commercial license on flickr, due to getty requirements) if i hadn't been willing to share them.

i intend to continue to cull such blogs from my reader as i come across them. i'm just one person and it probably won't at all make the least bit of difference to the non-sharers, but i feel it's worth taking a stand. it's the only way to keep the interwebs free and open, as they were intended.

EDITED:  i should add that i am not talking here about photography or photos that people have for sale as photos - i'm talking about pictures of quilts and stones and garlands and vats of dye. not having photos which are for sale proliferated on pinterest is something else entirely. and many photographers have sites which are set up so they can't be tumbled or pinned - and i have no objection to that. 

in which she ponders the waning years of the american empire

i've been pondering this post for awhile. and although gwen recently wrote it far better than i can, i still have to weigh in...you see, when i visited the land of my birth this summer, after 3+ years away, i was a little shocked at the state of things.

i had expected to see signs of a depressed economy and they were there in the little things...more weeds in the cracks on the roads, flaking paint on the light poles, a general sort of lack of road maintenance. but they weren't there in ways i expected them to be. everyone (in the upper midwest, at least) is still driving around in the most ginormous, ugly, ungainly and badly-designed vehicles i've had the misfortune to see in, well, about three and a half years. when i saw the dodges on the road, i tell you, i understood why the company was in trouble (but i wondered why anyone bothered to bail them out, since they clearly had made such bad business/design decisions that they deserved to go under). i know i've said this before, but the vehicles seriously look like tanks thinly disguised as cars. who needs a vehicle that large and bulky? and who can afford to keep them filled with gas, as they must get absolutely rubbish mileage?  so clearly the crisis hasn't been bad enough to drive anyone to consider downsizing to a more gas-economical vehicle.

and on the subject of cars, one of my facebook friends was recently lamenting how sad it was to own two cars and have both of them in the shop. i commented that she could have stopped after the first part of the sentence - as it strikes me as quite sad to be one person, living alone, and have two cars. while i appreciate that a single person cannot drive both of the cars at once, it is still a monumentally arrogant act to think that you are entitled to two cars. what if everyone in india and china felt that way too?

case in point

at the first snack village (my nephew's name for those gas stations with a mini(?) market) we stopped in i was a little taken aback that there was an entire wall filled with your basic jesus-related t-shirts. and just when i had filled my 42 oz. beverage (i wanted a small one, you see) and recovered my shock at the jesus shirts, i wandered into the pop tart aisle. seriously, like 10 feet of a shelf  devoted entirely to pop tarts, swathed in brightly-colored packaging. which brings me to the next shocking thing. people had noticeably gained weight since i was last in the country.  like more than just a few pounds. of course i'm not a twig myself, so i don't mean to point fingers, but this was bad.

and it leads me back to the pop tarts and to all of that packaged, processed food in general, which i'm sure is directly responsible for people looking the way they do. it's so unhealthy. and good odin, the bread, don't even get me started on the bread - husband's eye actually twitched on one occasion while eating a slice of it. the sorriest excuse for bread in the world, in fact, it should be labeled like the cheese is in the US - as a processed, pasteurized bread product and not actual bread. and although i know that most of my readers (at least until after this post) are US-based and most of you are concerned about buying fresh, local produce if you possibly can, it's obvious that the vast majority of people haven't caught onto that. at all. and it's really worrying (unless of course you are a drug company that makes insulin or own quite a lot of stock in one #silver lining). no wonder the US has health care-related issues.

it amazed me how little the whole locovore concept has reached the area where i grew up - which is kind of ironic in that it's agricultural country. i had a conversation with my mother, where she was cussing out the locally-produced eggs available in the grocery store, as although they said "large," they weren't large at all in her eyes. she came home triumphant one day, happy that the store had gotten some imported-across-several-states "jumbo" eggs instead of those dreaded local ones. i asked her if she thought about food miles on those eggs and she looked at me blankly. which is weird because she is otherwise quite a fan of barbara kingsolver.

another worrying trend was the amount of religious fundamentalist billboards. so many that it actually began to seem menacing. somewhere south of sioux city, iowa on I-29, husband and i looked uneasily at one another as we passed a stark white billboard with somber black text reading, "are you ready to meet your god?" there was an exit coming up and we glanced at the children in the backseat, wondering if we'd have to somehow defend them from snipers, the billboard seemed so threatening.

now, having grown up in a town with 12 churches, i knew that there was a religiosity in the US, so i'm not saying that it's new, but it struck me that it's become so much more aggressive. it used to be ok to just quietly be your religion, but now it seems that you must display your christianity (because that seemed also to be the only option) much more visibly. of course, i also realize that freedom of religion is one of the basic tenets of what it means to be american. however, i'm not longer sure it would be ok to be a religion other than evangelical christian. not if you judge by the roadside advertising and the lit-up ticker-style signs on all the churches in every little town in the upper midwest. it's undoubtedly different on the coasts and in larger cities, but this is the heartland. and it's worth taking the pulse there to see what's really happening.

but perhaps the most shocking experience of all was listening to the "news." for one, there's scarcely any news it in anymore...just a poorly-argued string of predictions as to the demise of this or that politician or hollywood star. it seemed that there's no reporting on what actually happened or real analysis of it, but just a lot of shouting by heavily-made up, coiffed people who may at one time have been involved with the miss america pageant. at least in south dakota, on the local news they still talk about the weather, but even that is a bunch of more or less wild predictions. 

it seems to me that americans are expending an awful lot of energy and resources protecting themselves from "enemies" - behind strident religious slogans, in shouting news-free opinion casts, in tank-like vehicles and underneath layers of fat. and i find it really worrying. and sad. and wonder if it doesn't look an awful lot like the waning years of the holy roman empire, only with evangelical preachers, fox news and reality television.

stitched up: what does quilting mean?

last week, i happened to go to jude hill's big cartel site at exactly the right time to be able to, at long last, buy one of her beautiful spirit cloth creations. and it arrived already yesterday. it must have taken the first flight it could, because it seemed to get here very quickly. i think it knew how much i was looking forward to it.i've mentioned jude's spirit cloth blog and photostream before, because i have been drawn back to her work again and again for awhile now. i love the insight into her process that she shares on her blog - it's definitely magical.

as i sit here and write this, with the cloth here on my lap, i feel it radiating a quiet magic. i've had a half-written post on the topic of this quilting thing in my head for several days now, but it didn't really want to come out. now that the cloth is here, it seems the words are ready to come.

i joined jude's slow cloth group on facebook last week. there is a lively discussion going on there, but i'll admit that i ended up feeling very provoked by what was being said. especially by what was being said about contemporary quilters and quilting materials. there seemed to be a preference for old fabrics over new and hand stitching instead of sewing with a machine. a decided prejudice against what's marketed and an attitude towards quilt shows and popularizing quilt designers (tho' no one dared to name names) that i can only describe as haughty. i found myself feeling strangely angry about some of what i read (i must stress that it isn't everyone in the group or even everyone in the discussion - and jude is marvelous at redirecting the conversation onto a thoughtful and more productive track). but some of it seemed arrogant and elitist. there is actually one person who said they couldn't stand the rotary cutters many people use for cutting fabric. and another who was criticizing what people did with their quilts and how they hung them - as if they weren't their own to do with as they pleased. i was overwhelmed by a sense of irony that the conversation is taking place on facebook - the use of modern social networking to have a conversation about a return to traditional handmade quilting. hmmm....

one of the participants in the discussion, linked to this blog post about what quilting is today and what it once was (in this person's opinion). and i think the post sums up nicely the anti-commercial thread that's in evidence in the facebook group.  also ironic, because if you start to look at the blogs of the participants, you find that most have an etsy or big cartel site and some even sell through galleries, so they are, in fact, selling their work, even as they express disdain for those who do so. i'm not sure if i can make that fit together very well.

and while it would be wonderful if we could all sit in our cocoons and create to our hearts' content, the reality of the world in which we find ourselves is that we probably need to sell some of the things we make. selling not only supports our creative habits, but it also validates us if we're honest about it. and it brings us joy. i feel so happy and satisfied that my friend blanca wanted to give baby quilts that i made to some of the babies in her family for christmas. and while the financial side is nice, what's actually even nicer is that my friend liked my work enough to want to give it as a meaningful gift to someone she loves.

anyway, i guess i have this quilting thing and what it might all mean on my mind these days. on my mind as i contemplate cutting into sabin's baby's clothes to be able to make her a memory quilt of her life thus far. on my mind as i made blocks for christmas for husband's daughters to have memory quilts of their own--of our travels and our times spent together. on my mind as i contemplate the wonderful handmade quilt husband's mother made for him--a mixture of blocks he designed and traditional blocks. on my mind as i try to decide what to do with the beautiful, bright quilt top that my great grandmother made.

i'm finding it a bit surprising, the strong emotions i feel about this whole thing. there is something about stitching. something that feels connected and grounding. but i honestly have no objection to using new fabrics, just because they're popular. when i look at the quilt top that my great grandmother made, i see bright, cheerful fabrics that i'm sure were the popular ones of her era. so to use the new and beautiful fabrics i see out there seems to me to be quilting in her spirit, even if i do most of my sewing my machine and am quite attached to my rotary cutter.

i think one of the magical things about quilts is that they are very representative of their times. they are quite literally the very fabric of their time. and i don't see anything wrong with that. as i look through the book about swedish quilts that i found a few months ago, i see that the same was true then. so, i'm going to hang out in the slow cloth group and see what i can learn, because there are some real artists there, even if some of the group is a bit elitist and disdainful (despite a lot of talk about mentoring). i'm confident i can hold my own. and find my own stitching voice. but i do think that having an incredible piece like jude's story fragment beside me as i do it will help. thank you jude, for giving in a bit to the commercial side and sharing your beautiful work. i will take good care of it.

only in denmark

i was just watching the new digital channel for children with sabin and they showed this video. it's a puppet who, after a hard day at the office, likes to wear women's underwear. it then comes out that his colleagues all do the same. this could never happen in the US without everyone on the channel being hauled away to the electric chair. but i could not stop laughing. and i simply had to share. don't ever say the danes don't have a healthy sense of humor.

i give you gepetto news: undertøj

deep thoughts

i saw an interesting discussion on the program univers on DR2 on the subject of people who are combining christianity and buddhism. there was a clip from the dalai lama's last visit to denmark, where he was saying that it's best for us to hold on to our religious background from the standpoint that our culture and sense of ourselves are so grounded in it. they talked to a woman whose home was filled with buddhas and jesus and mary icons side by side and who seemed like a peaceful, grounded, serene person. frankly, we could use some peaceful grounded serenity around here.

i've already been mulling over the whole religion question for awhile now, since spud wrote her god post. when she wrote that it occurred to me that you could be raised a church-goer without necessarily being raised religious. or at least you definitely can if you were raised presbyterian, as i was. we went to church every sunday, mostly because mom is the choir director and she had to be there. we tended to drop it over the summer, as we were showing horses every weekend and weren't home. mom's choir took a break over the summer as well. it's just how it was. dad went regularly only during april when he was an usher. mostly because church tended to interfere with football on sundays and being able to see the start of the games.

church served, in my view, a largely social function. i loved to dress up and we dressed up for church. i remember one year where it was my goal not to wear the same dress twice. and as i recall, i succeeded. we had a big fellowship hall at our church and the kids were actually able to do quite a lot of rambunctious running around. we had a wednesday youth group that took a yearly ski trip and it's where i learned to ski. but again, i remember it mostly as social and not as religious per se.

the little town of 1300 people where i grew up had no less than 12 churches. so on the surface it would look pretty religious. some were tiny little splinter churches that had broken off one of the others when something or other didn't function socially or they didn't like the minister. but again, it was a question of social relations more than doctrine. at christmastime and around the 4th of july, there are always community church services, where all of the congregations come together for community services, leaving aside whether they're bible beaters, catholics, dutch reformed or calm, understated lutherans or presbyterians. that was a good occasion for socializing.

i experienced some of the other churches, going with friends or a boyfriend, so i got a taste of some of the more fringe movements, where the preacher was a bit more aggressive in asking people to be born again and such. i never really got that, thinking i'd done quite ok being born the first time, thank you very much.

my sister and i weren't baptized as babies because our parents thought (at least at the time) that we should choose that for ourselves and know what it was we were getting into. i so love and respect that thought. and as a result, sabin's not baptized either. here in denmark, around 15, kids go to confirmation classes and they choose whether to confirm their baptism. if sabin chooses to go through that, she will also have to be baptized at that time. but at least it will be her choice.

the religion subject also came up of late because sabin has chosen to attend something called mini-konfirmand. the danish church, which is lutheran and a state church, is struggling in the face of irrelevance. people use the church for the big three - birth, marriage, death - but generally there aren't many who regularly attend sunday services. there is a very dynamic, lively woman minister at the local church and she's simply awesome with the kids, so sabin loves her wednesday mini-konfirmand sessions. they play games, build a few bible stories in lego and spend time in beautiful surroundings full of designer furniture and lamps (since it's a state church and the danish state is apparently keeping its assets in arne jacobsen chairs and PH lamps).  her best friends are there and she has a ball. so again, it's serving a social function.

one wednesday a month, they have "god & spaghetti" where you go as a family at 5:30, have a quick 20 minute service in the church itself (which is a lovely old building), christina, the cool minister, dresses up and pops out of a giant bible and tells some or other bible story and then we go over and eat spaghetti or lasagna and salad and socialize with the other kids and parents. and i hate to keep repeating myself, but again, it's largely a social thing.

but all of this undoubtedly proves what the dalai lama said about our religion being rooted in our culture. in that little town where i grew up, it would have been hard to be a member of the society without identifying with one of the churches in town, because it served such a social function. and i'm sure people there wouldn't like to look closely at it, but the various denominations had a definite class designation and hierarchy in the scheme of the social structure of the town as well.

so where does this leave me? especially when i'm in need of some peaceful grounded serenity? which is, admittedly, sometimes lacking in my otherwise extremely secular world view. i think that's the appeal of buddhism for people raised in western christianity. it's something you can do on your own, meditating on a pillow in your own home. it fits our individualistic view and can give us the space we need for quiet contemplation. i wish the program on DR would have gone a bit more in that direction. the woman with buddhas and icons nearly touched on it, but didn't quite. but the program did provoke me to think more about it, so i guess that's the best you can ask from quality television. i hope they do something about the old viking religions, i'd like to know more about those.