Rice, not Potatoes

It's been an extraordinary year. We've got well defined candidates and it's a fight to the finish between the good old boys network vs the green idealists, making for a most compelling drama.

It's sure got us talking. My youngest says its the topic at parties, even for those too young to vote. Dinner parties I attend start and end with it, and I'm left wondering when the last time a Presidential race stirred us like this.

I have a rabid Republican in my life; well, more than one. I get that they want to keep what they work hard to earn. The Republican party protects and preserves through slow and steady routines; they go with the flow, stick with tried and true methodology, their world stays flat.

Not me. I'm an idealistic Democrat through and through -- a flower child believing the world is bettered through altruism and heart. We have to dream it before we can live it or, like the Velveteen Rabbit, it will never be real. My world isn't just round, it's in a constant state of evolution that has no room for same old, same old.

For a long time, I begged off political discussions. But we're now in a place where I've got to be more informed and insightful, where I can listen to the Republican hyperbole and know how to recognize and extract the kernels of truth found there. We all seem to agree there's a desperate need for a mainstream candidate solid and steady, visionary and brilliant, who represents the best of our country rather than extreme swings right or left. We'd sure warm to a competition that included Dr. Rice.

Obstructing Sidewalk Traffic

I've always been honored by my right to vote as a citizen of our country. I love the whole process, well except for the media hype part. I enjoy the little newspaper voting booklets, reading and marking them up. I love the rickety booths that threaten to collapse and the smiling volunteers who hand me an I've voted sticker.

A recent online article about The Women's Suffrage Movement really grabbed my attention and took it to the next level. I studied the Suffrage Movement in high school but I don't remember it getting into the down and dirty process of how these women earned us the right to vote. Could I have really forgotten the horrific abuse and intimidation that was suffered in the name of voicing our opinion?

This isn't a distant event: It was 1920. My mother was born in 1927, making hers the first generation of girls in America born into that right, making me the second. Here are excerpts from the article:

"On Nov. 15, 1917, the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they DARED to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

"The guards chained Suffragist Lucy Burns' hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

"For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. And when the United States President and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized, the doctor patently refused, admonishing the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'"

I won't forget your sacrifices when I proclaim I have ALWAYS had the right to vote.

Following Her Lead

Today I learned that Sophie's depressed energy is actually due to a neurological problem affecting her hind quarters. She can manage alright for a while, but time is short: well, shorter than I thought. She's a beautiful dog, a pedigree Boxer with sculpted lines and a highly muscular body and large proud chest. Her markings are perfect: she's tan with a white mane collar, white chest, a perfect stripe up her face and over her head, and white forepaws.

I haven't known her long, just a third of her life, a hair over 2 years. But she has made an impact. For instance, I like the way she strains against the leash with such force I risk shin splints just to keep up. I might as well be a kite when she encounters a certain basset hound in her disfavor. And yet with a pup, she gently nudges it around with her nose. She demands a cup of water mixed in with her kibble and begs at dinner from the edge of the carpet, staring hard to entice us to give her the last few bites. She self-directs play. Up her toy goes into the air and flies across the room or she chases laser lights down the hall, up the wall and into a closet. She's a great companion, sits at my feet as I blog or lays her head on my knee for reading time.

Her body will atrophy as she loses the ability to balance, maneuver, and stand. I can see it already, in her resignation at watching, rather than chasing, neighbor cats sitting out front. Ok, little girl, here's the plan: we're in this together. We will enjoy each other as long as we can and be satisfied with that.