🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Sent postcards to Rep. Pete Olson and Senators Cornyn and Cruz:

I am concerned the recent report by Amnesty International which found that the current administration has separated more children from their parents than previously reported. To date, at least 200 children are still separated from their families. Our government is concentrating unaccompanied teens into expanding tent camps in Texas. As a taxpayer, I’m furious. As a human being, I’m horrified. I expect you to work to end these policies and show basic human decency in our immigration process.

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Submitted to Regularions.gov

I oppose a policy refusing citizenship to families who use or have used public assistance.

The “public charge” rule would prevent people from working and supporting their families.

The “public charge” rule would deny people over age 61 a future.

This regulation would violate my state’s right to provide benefits to families in short-term crisis and increase federal intrusion into local issues.

Immigrants strengthen our communities and our economy, contributing billions in taxes.

I want my tax dollar to support and show decency toward aspiring Americans.

Even the Department of Homeland Security found the rule change could have serious public health and other consequences.

The proposal itself lists many negative consequences to the country as a whole, including several related to public health.

I do not want this rule to be implemented.

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Thank note to Fr. Ruskin Piedra:

Thank you for your spirit in action to provide immigration legal services in Brooklyn since 2003. Your persistence in the face of the current administration is admirable and courageous. Thank you for your work. 

Address: 545 60th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11220

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Thank you note to State Senator Nikema Williams (D-GA):

Thank you for standing with your constituents to insist their votes be counted, and for enduring arrest. Your principled bravery in the face of injustice is a beacon for all who believe in equality.

Around OakMeadows

I love PBS and one of my favorite shows is Nature. The most recent program was on Squirrels. Did you know that there are over 300 species of squirrels? Tree squirrels, ground squirrels, flying squirrels. A squirrel’s teeth never stop growing to counter the wear and tear of their diet. A red squirrel’s teeth grow about 8 inches each year. Chipmunks can stash up to 7 nuts in their flexible cheek pouches.  Fox squirrels can bury up to 9000 nuts per year.  Flying squirrels can glide up to 150 feet which is half the length of a football field!!

I spent a good bit of time today straightening out of electrical and water accounts.  We have them on autopay to our credit card. For some unknown reason this month’s charge went to a previous card number and not to the current card. No idea why. The water bill was easy to correct and pay online. But the electric bill was complicated because the company is updating their website. I had to completely reregister but once that was done, I was able to pay and get that cleared up. Tomorrow I have to contact the septic system company because I was notified that the disinfecting mechanism needs repair. No idea what this will cost.  Last of all I got the bill for our property taxes. I’ve got the money and it will be good to have it paid for the next year. 

Angie is just about completely over her bout of kennel cough. She only coughs when she is excited which is every time the walker from Awesome Paws comes. She needs a bath. I need to make an appointment for her to be groomed; it will probably be after Thanksgiving.  

Not much progress on the quilt top. 

Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams by Joseph Ellis

Passionate Sage

Commitment to principle somehow necessitated unpopularity for John Adams, and the fullest expression of his best energies occurred in singular acts of passionate defiance.  For Adams, virtue demanded a level of disinterestedness and a purity of public spiritedness that derived its compulsion from psychological imperative which seemed to require isolation and unpopularity as evidence of its authenticity. 

Adams believed that there is no one principle which predominates in human nature so much in every stage of life as the passion for superiority. Every human being compares itself with every other around it and will find some superiority over every other. 

Adams was obsessed with interior integrity, not with the external rewards that mastery of appearance could bring. Humility, piety, self-denial, and other habits were not just means to an end for him, but the ends themselves. 

Adams suggested that most enduring political, social, and economic transformations were evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Successful revolutions such as the one he helped lead in America, were merely the final and most visible stages of what was a long process of preparation. The only kind of progress Adams truly trusted came gradually, moving at an evolutionary pace that allowed institutions to adjust and expectations to remain under some modicum of control. 

In his political thinking, Adams did embrace two of the central tenets of the liberal tradition: the doctrine of popular sovereignty, that is, the notion that political power ultimately derives from the people; and the principle of equality before the law, the view that justice is blind to the class, race, or gender of the accused. In these two areas, Adams was a liberal. 

Adams warned Jefferson that individual freedom and social equality were incompatible ideas, that ignoring their conflict only assured the triumph of the privileged. Adams insisted that government needed to play an active role in managing national priorities; that it was not, as Jefferson seemed to believe, only and always, a source of oppression. 

An excellent book which explores the principles of government which two hundred years later we are still debating. 

🔥Resistance. Every. Day🔥

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Thank you note to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and/or Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore 

Thank you for your commitment to addressing and preventing hate crimes in the U.S. The DOJ’s new website, trainings, and data-gathering efforts can make a positive difference in our communities. Thank you.

Address: U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20530-0001

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Thank you note to Sean Combs for committing $1 million to the Capital Preparatory Schools network to help kids in underserved communities gain access to high-quality education. 

Address: ℅ Violator Management & Records, 36 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10010-2706

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Notes of Congratulations to:

Josh Bendor, Vianey Hurtado, and Ron Kilgard 

Congratulations for receiving recognition as Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project pro bono attorneys of the year. I share your dismay at the militarization of the southern border and the attempts to restrict migrants from seeking asylum. Thank you for your work. 

Addresses:

JB, 2929 North Central Avenue, Twenty-First Floor, Phoenix, AZ 85012-2793

VH, 3830 North 19th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85015

RK, 3101 North Central Avenue, Suite 1400, Phoenix, AZ 85012-2600

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Thank you note to Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D-CA):

Thank you for working to protect the promises made to Dreamers. I appreciate your insistence that the rule of law prevail, and that public policy must be vetted and centered in human decency.

Address: 1300 “I” Street, Sacramento, CA 95814-2919

Thank you note to Jeff Flake (R-AZ):

Thank you for publicly supporting the Mueller investigation, opposing conflicts of interest, and urging the Senate to bring to a vote the bipartisan Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act (S. 2644) passed in committee last April. I trust you’ll support it when it comes up for a vote. Thank you for putting integrity over party.

Address: 6840 North Oracle Road, Suite 150, Tucson, AZ 85704

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

I’m concerned about the president’s plan to restrict asylum and deprive legal asylum seekers of their right to due process granted in the 1980 Refugee Act. Our nation has an international responsibility and a moral obligation to receive people whose lives are in danger. I would like you to defend the rights of people seeking asylum in the US.

Around OakMeadows

Winter has arrived. Cold, gray, windy. 

The dog is slowly recovering. She only coughs when she is excited.  She’s back to eating her regular food in regular amounts.  And best of all she is back to her happy bouncy self. 

I’ve been watching Designated Survivor and it is very good. 

Around OakMeadows- Sick Dog Edition

My sweet Angie

Last night around midnight our sweet little dog, Angie, started coughing. She coughed and coughed.  It sounded like something was stuck in her throat but she coughed up nothing. She coughed off and on for the rest of the night. This morning I called the vet and made an appointment to see the vet this morning. When I described the symptoms, the receptionist asked if Angie had been boarded recently. I said yes that she had been overnight at Camp Bow Wow.  She then said it was probably kennel cough. This means that she would not be able to be boarded while JMM is in Italy. Since JMM leaves in 3 days, I am in a scramble to figure out how to take care of her here at home. Arrgghh!!!

Update: Angie does have Kennel Cough. She gets doxycycline twice a day and cough medicine 4 times a day. I can get her medicine in her by mixing it with various things she likes, scrambled eggs, Fancy Feast, buttered chicken, etc. Awesome Paws is coming once a day to take her for a walk and I will take her out for a driveway p&p 3 more times. The main problem to be solved is what kind of leash will work with my hand weakness. We have 2 days to get that figured out. 

My sweet dog really doesn’t feel well. She has periods where she just lays on her bed and snoozes and then she has coughing spells that last 2-3 minutes. She eats very little but she does eat and doesn’t throw up when she coughs. This is supposed to last about 10 days.  So I guess, 1 day down, 9 to go. 

Around OakMeadows

Butterflies on the blooming Crucita

Twice a year I rail against changing the time to or from Dqylight Savings time. Arrgghh!  I don’t know anyone who thinks this is a good idea. One way or the other all year round please!! Rant over for this 6 months. 

Yesterday my daughter came over and showed me how she makes roast chicken and gravy. Oh my, was it ever good. I’ve never been able to make good gravy and this onion gravy was wonderful.  We had such a nice visit. We walked the dogs and watched the new Netflix documentary, Salt Fat Acid Heat. JMM baked a Schwan’s Apple Pie. Just a lovely afternoon. 

Today I had my manicure/pedicure that I get every 6 weeks. Such luxury. 

We have had a dismal summer for butterflies but the last two weeks have made up for it. We have had literally hundreds of Queens and at least a hundred Monarchs plus skippers and several Common Buckeyes. (I don’t know why they are called Common Buckeyes because they are not common and they are spectacularly beautiful.  Maybe they should be called the Spectacular Buckeye instead. 

Quilt top is going slowly. I have ate 6 strips ready to sew together. Maybe tomorrow. I have the blocks ready for the following quilt top. I hope to get it together before the end of the year.  

Thank goodness the Election is tomorrow. I hope Beto wins the Senate seat and Sri wins our House seat. I just want it over! (But OTOH, they will immediately start the 2020 Presidential campaign. Ack!!!)

Life Around OakMeadows - October, 2018

Life Around OakMeadows - October, 2018

Birds

Great Blue Heron 

Cardinals 

Red-winged Blackbirds 

Hummingbirds 

Killdeer

Mockingbirds 

Grackles 

Crow

Cattle Egrets

Caracara

Black Vulture 

Barn Swallows 

White-winged Doves

Insects

Giant Swallowtail 

Monarchs 

Fiery Sachem

Little Sulphur

Cloudless Sulphur 

Gulf Fritillaries 

Long-tailed Skipper 

Grey Hairstreak 

Clouded Skipper

Blue Darter

Eastern Pondhawk 

Other

Raccoons 

Western Ribbon Snake

Squirrels 

Crayfish

Deer

Armadillo 

Opossum 

Other