Go read about it here.

Can you believe that we might some day be looking back fondly on the days when we only endured endless Viagra and Cialis ads?

It’s time to turn it all off and spend the time we watched/listened praying.

For this class we had to write a paper and do a take-home exam. I sweat bullets on both of them. My husband took them seriously, but mostly laughed at me and kept telling me that I was getting too wound up over this. At one point he attempted to tell me and here I am using his own words, please brace yourself one doesn’t encounter this level of blasphemy often, that “It didn’t really matter.” In fact, he took it so casually that he WASN’T EVEN GOING TO DO THE BONUS QUESTION ON THE TAKE-HOME EXAM. (Much less go print out at least 20 additional pages of research material for that one question like some people who take things seriously did.) Can you imagine!?

Fast forward a couple of weeks to the night we get our tests and our papers back. I flunked the exam. Yes, it’s true. I only got 102/100. Why did I flunk you ask? Well, you see that man who wasn’t even going to answer the bonus question, got a 106. The tests were passed back in alphabetical order which put us at the very front of the line. There seemed to be a current of supressed amusement vaguely pointed in our general direction when I discovered that I had flunked….I may have mentioned something about the whole universe being totally unfair. I can’t really remember. I block these sorts of traumata out. We both got 100’s on our papers.

This morning I got an email giving me the final course grade for “Introduction to Philosophy” Not that there was much doubt as to what the final grade would be but there was a class participation component. I got a 100. Now, university privacy issues being what they are my husband’s grade was emailed to him so I immediately went to look at his grade….yes it was HIS email. Did you have a point?…He got a 100.

GET THE BEJABBERS SCARED OUT OF YOU BY A SNAKE (that looks VERY like a copperhead but wasn’t) IN THE LIME TREE. (yes, I am shouting.)

Remember that you are a homeschooling mother and that this is a teachable moment. Go get children to examine snake. Tell them that they may NOT kill it with the shovel as it poses no risk. Them them that they may not torment it with a stick either just because they want to see it move. Allow the middle child to get his camera to take pictures. Finally get back in inside the house. Holler at the children to clean up the mess they each indivivdually swear they didn’t make. Finally get upstairs to the schoolroom and sit down to tackle the stack of papers that need to be graded. Struggle with very un-homeschooling-mommy-like thoughts as the children say, “Mom, can we do real-alouds now?” Promise them that you will do read-alouds in 20 minutes. Look at stack of papers….look at blog that hasn’t been updated in [don’t want to count days] and….

Blog. 

Sigh, the youngest child who clearly wants to die is saying “Mommy it’s been 22 minutes.” 

Dying to self would be so much easier if it didn’t look so ordinary. 

1. Cook two cups of rice with appropriate amounts of salt and oil….or more or less rice  depending on how many you are feeding. Just adjust the amount of dressing you make accordingly. Pick a kind of rice that you like. Any rice will do but if you use Minute Rice, I don’t want to hear about it. I am quite partial to a mix of Lundberg fams wild rice blend with some Uncle Ben’s tossed for those who think brown rice is yucky. I’ve also mixed lentils and beans into the rice with very good results. I also cook the rice with about 1 tsp of curry powder per cup of uncooked rice. I am partial to Penzeys’ Maharajah Curry Powder for this recipe. I also like their garam masala for this recipe but if you use that do NOT cook it with the rice since it is best uncooked.

2. For the dressing mix together another tsp of curry powder per uncooked cup of rice (if you didn’t eat this at the diaconate potluck, then your version had a little more than that and I thought it was too much.) Add more or less to taste. I like things highly flavored so if you don’t, start with less. Then add approximately 1/2 cup oil, 1/3 cup white wine vinegar, and 1 tsp soy sauce for every two cups of uncooked rice that you started with. If you ate the diaconate potluck version of this, this following step is very important. Measure the soy sauce using the large refill bottle of soy sauce that you keep in the pantry and accidentally spill at least a quarter cup of soy sauce into the blender after you have measured out the requisite amount of soy sauce. It is cucial at this point that you say some spicy words to fully round out the flavor of the dressing and then resolve to change the name of the salad to Asian Rice Salad if anyone asks for a name. Combine the curry powder, oil, vinegar, and too much soy sauce (if you have followed the recipe exactly) pour over the rice and toss thoroughly.

3. At this point you may put the salad into the frig until you are ready to dress is for serving. This makes a particularly good lunch dish if you just scoop some into a bowl and then toss it with whatever looks good at the time., you can also serve it over mixed greens. What do you use to “dress” this….other than the above dressing? Whatever looks and sounds good to you.  Green onions and chives are a staple for me. Grapes work nicely and diced avocado is heavenly in this. Toss some cooked, diced chicken breast into it if you are looking for some protein but chopped hard boiled eggs, tofu, or black beans also work nicely. Other fruits/items that work, drained canned mandarin oranges (or fresh ones), dice pineapple of either the fresh or canned sort, raisins, currants, bananas, apples, olives, cheese, etc.

Let me be clear. I do not support either major candidate for the presidency. I have disliked McCain and his politics for as long as I can remember. I have disliked Obama and his politics for not quite as long. Nevertheless, I cannot cast my vote for someone who is campaiging on a promise to pass legislation that will surely increase the number of abortions in this country. I am not a one issue voter, but Obama’s absolutely uncompromising stance on abortion including voting against protecting babies born alive, and partial birth abortions, etc. totally disqualifies him for dog catcher much less POTUS.

But I digess. Back to voting third party. Unless a third party candidate is on the ballot in enough states to win an electoral majority and ideally in all 50 states (and yes, I know how hard that is to accopmlish for a third party candidate) they are simply not only not going to win. Furthermore, they are not prepared to govern if they do win.

The Constitution Party candidate (the one I have heard most often as the favored third party choice…although, he is not my particular temptation in the third party realm), Chuck Baldwin, is currently on the ballot (not as a write-in) in states constituting 318 electoral votes. That leaves 220 electoral votes that he absolutely cannot get. You need 270 to win.

So to be clear here, all Obama and McCain have to do TOGETHER is get 48 electoral votes in the states where Baldwin is on the ballot and he cannot win. Can’t. You think that Obama isn’t going to take 55 electoral votes in California? Or that Texas (34 electoral votes) isn’t going to McCain? That’s the reality.

And let’s just suspend reality for a minute and ask, “How is a third party candidate, that doesn’t even have the depth of support to get on the ballot in all 50 states going to govern in the event he actually got elected?” The whole idea of accumulating and spending “political capital” is a very real one and a third party candidate wouldn’t have ANY to start with.

I think that third party candidates for President help foster the notion that the most important vote we make is the one for President and that the only way we have to influence politics is with our vote. Meadow muffins. We’ve got a lot of options available to us. We can build a new party by doing the hard work necessary to get local people on the ballot and building from there, NOT by starting at the top and working down. We can have fund-raisers and talk to our neighbors for the the entire 4 years between presidential elections so that there is a base to build from. We can support the special interests that we care the most about with our hard earned money. We can write those people we do elect and send letters to the editor and hold our elected officials accountable ALL of the time and not just the 6 months before a presidential election.

It’s not our presidential vote that we “throw away.” It’s all the time between elections that is thrown away when we could have been working and investing some of our OWN political capital so that we aren’t faced with a choice of the lesser of two evils. If we are faced with a choice of the lesser of two evils, I don’t think that voting thrid party is the way to assuage our conscience. It’s how we use our time and money between elections that will truly fix our conscience.