Still Hiatusing

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Still kickin' back.

Have you read Tales of Beedle the Bard? Go ahead. Give yourself a treat.

(No, there's no link. I'm on hiatus, remember?)
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Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllllll, it was nice while it lasted....

Buy American...from Wall Street to Wal-Mart

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This morning in the New York Times, Warren Buffett makes the case for investing now in American stocks.

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.
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To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Buying American takes some doing these days. Just last weekend, I wove through the road construction and asphalt trucks of l'il ol' Park Rapids, Minnesota for a rare visit to the local Wal-Mart in search of something I knew I couldn't find in the other smaller stores of the community.

While there, I decided to look for a new juice container.

I'm pragmatic about my fears. I don't worry about boogey-men popping out from behind the tall timbers. The only orange alert is the color of the tamaracks.

I don't shy away from paying my taxes....just how do folks think that road construction and those asphalt trucks get paid for, anyway? I just want to be sure that when I do pay those taxes, the money's spent responsibly, wisely and prudently. So reading that one of John McCain's chief fundraisers is under investigation for war profiteering...now that's something I fear. And that's something I expect the government I'm paying for to do something about...to protect this country and to protect my family.

And when I see economist Joseph Stiglitz telling Colbert about how global corporations have figured out how to bill bilk the American taxpayer out of gazillions of dollars doing things like truckin' sand from Kuwait to Iraq. What, said Colbert, they don't have enough sand in Iraq?

Yeah, sometimes I wonder if we should be learning from history not just by reading Orwell's 1984, but we should also be reconnecting with Milo Minderbender in Catch-22.

But back to storing stuff in plastic made in China. You see, I worry about that. Plastic, any plastic, gives me pause. And, yes, I did see The Graduate in original release. But sorry, plastic don't float my boat. So there I was in Wal-Mart. Looking for a glass juice container. Not made in China.

And I found it. Anchor-Hocking, said the label. Made in America. By a good ol' American company that's been around since long before I was writing ad copy for the housewares sales at the regional hardware and sports chain where I started biz writing.

Nice to see an old friend.

So there's a couple of new glass carafe-shaped pitchers ready for juice and iced tea in the tall timber now.

And if you are willing to do a little extra work, make a little extra effort, you, too, can "buy American" and invest in putting this country back on its feet.
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Kickin’ Back

Something there is—do I have to footnote that?—about a weekend. For a few folks—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Keller, John McCain come to mind, oh, and toss in a bit of Boll Bennett and rightwing ranters who shall remain nameless because we refuse to give them any further publicity on what’s turned into a typical Beltway contretemps of spin, deflect, and denial—this weekend won’t be different than the rest of the week.

But for the rest of us, the weekend’s a perfect opportunity to kick back, reflect and rejuvenate for the week to come.

Renew the well.

Now that the campaign season seems to be pretty much a 24/7/365…have the candidates for 2012 announced yet? And who are they blaming?

Yeah, me, too. It started too damned early and it’ll last too long, and it’ll be too nasty and nobody will be satisfied for long and….

There’s something to be said for stepping back.

Put on your cuddle-duds and your boots and your jacket and cap and venture out into the fresh air. Had any lately?

I’m heading back out into the sunshine, the bracing mid-20s temperature (hey, after record minus-thirtyish temps just days ago, this is downright tropical…almost…), whistling for the spaniels, stoppin’ in my tracks, and raising my face to just bask in the moment.

How about you?

At the cabin I turn to a fun little book, If My House Were on Fire…These Are the Recipes I’d Take by Lori Powell Gordon. You’ll find this kind of combination of recipes and family nostalgia and fun under various titles in gift shops in touristy country just about anywhere.

But instead of recipes, I assemble moments in my mental spiral-bound book. And today will be one…chickadees at the bird feeders, a downy woodpecker overcoming shyness to zero in on the suet feeder, ice houses out on the snow-covered lake in a necklace chain right where the lake bottom drops away, the low hum of snowmobilers for undernotes.

A moment to kick back and savor… and save for a day when you need to pull out a moment.

Had any lately?

Prairie Weather: Snow Job

Now that the Super Bowl and the Super Tuesday and even Groundhog Day are over, we can start looking forward to spring and the warming season. But there’s still some rough weather to get through.

Rough weather like the folks in Tennessee and Kentucky and five states altogether felt as lives were uprooted, ended, changed forever by horrific tornadoes. It pays to pay attention to the weather warnings when we have them.

Around Prairie Country, we’re bracing for Alberta Clipper, and the likelihood of a weekend blizzard and high winds and… well, we’ve learned it’s practical to carry “winter survival gear” even in town since Fargo decided to go and get sprawly.

There’s a good bit of Groundhog thinking going on these days. That all we have to do is just wait a year and check whether things will be different. That may work for the Democratic-led Congress, but some of us are a mite bit impatient at that. So on Super Tuesday, the numbers were awesome, the lines long, the voices raised.

No, we didn’t decide on a nominee that day, but we did decide that we’re all taking part.

It was nasty cold around here on Tuesday, but the grin on the face of the 80-something white guy walking out of the caucus site into the sunshine with the Obama sign tucked under his arm was a sight to behold.

Prairie Country’s pretty white around here, and it’s not just the knee-deep snow. But the times they are a-changin’, and we welcome new neighbors from the Himalayan foothills to the survivor camps of Sudan to just about any point on the map you can name.

The welcoming heart, the open door may be because around here most of us are mindful that our grandparents came in waves looking for their own opportunities. And those grandparents didn’t arrive with many fancy goods, but their children taught us well…lessons of history, and lessons of learning.

How to cut through the snow and recognize the snow job. We could use more of that these days.

Seems if you’ve got the biggest megaphone or the loftiest perch, you can catapult the propaganda. Or so it’s been. The times there, too, are a-changin’.

This morning Doris Kearns Goodwin chatted on the Imus Show about her Abe Lincoln book, Team of Rivals. Seems Barack Obama has said that book would be close at hand if he were in the Oval Office.

Lincoln, our greatest of presidents, valued the give-and-take of a leadership team that would challenge him. And lived America’s greatest values thereby. Compared to our current president who seems to value only his gut, his bike, his chainsaw, and his yes men. Or his puppeteers.

The contrast is marked.

There’s another noteworthy contrast, too, in Obama’s response to a question posed to candidates about their greatest flaw. While the other candidates spun an overzealous pushing of a self-perceived strength, Obama’s wry confession that he keeps a messy desk rings true.

So as the weather season and the campaign season move forward, read the weather signs. Think about who’s authentic and who’s giving you just another snow job. Because this time, yes, it really does matter. And one vote, your vote, does matter.

Isn’t there something reassuring that a candidate for president keeps a messy desk…and a copy of a biography of Lincoln and his team?

Instead of a blank desk…and My Pet Goat….

PEBC: On Change...Not So Big and Bird by Bird

And so we begin Prairie’s Eclectic Book Club.

Change is much in the wind these days. The weather is changing…storms batter places they’ve never visited before. The WGA strike has changed teevee programming. Tired of winter we look forward to the change in seasons, reading our garden catalogues. The economy is changing—interest rates going down, down, down instead of up. Even though Just go shopping as a solution to everything from 9/11 to the 2007 Christmas doldrums just isn’t making it any more.

We are a country hungry for change. You can see it in the crowds drawn to Obama appearances. You can read it in the blogs educating us about the issues the MSM leaves out or gives scant shrift or spin to…and building vibrant online communities in the process.

The political landscape is going through a titanic shift these days, and about time doing it. We are looking for new leaders, we are looking for rebuilding, we are looking for restoration of the sturdy foundations of the nation.

But how can we expect such great change unless we are willing to change within ourselves? If we remain unchanged, will anything around us truly change?

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

The architect Sarah Susanka named a way of thinking about homes in her seminal book, The Not So Big House, and in the process of describing that concept, she gave voice to a restless rebellion against the McMansioning of our lives. The overbuilt, overblown, grandiose grotesqueries all the more silly for being plunked down on teeny-tiny plots of ground.

Her masterstroke was the away space. Be it a room, a nook, a corner, a closet, the away space is respite from the hectic, cluttered, frazzly parts of a house where most of the time the living takes place. A porch where you can sit and contemplate the birds at the feeders, a shelf where treasured tokens carry you to faraway places, a room totally bare but for a mat where you can sit and meditate… the away space is yours to define and find.

At this time when ’most everyone says they want change, how will we get there? It starts within, and Susanka has taken the building/remodeling concepts of her world of architecture and put them in a new frame that we all can use: The Not So Big Life.

Just as the series of Not So Big House books bring us to a new way of looking at and living in our homes, The Not So Big Life is a handbook for remodeling—changing—our lives.

And as with any remodeling, there is the blueprint, what will be the right structure…for me? How do I—and you—look at self and decide what needs changing, what’s worth keeping, what’s just clutter needing casting away?

There are a bazillion self-help books on the market, a bazillion guides to self-improvement. Susanka brings a freshness to the subject by putting us in the context of the place where we live and guiding us through looking around and taking stock…of our home and our heart.

Bird by Bird

And if you’re not new wave, and change seems too daunting, no matter how much you feel it resonate. If you feel a bit of “buyer’s remorse”—if you worry that maybe change is just “hoo-hah” as Medusa Matalin would like you to believe, then meet another wise woman: Anne LaMott. Her iconic book Bird by Bird transcends its Instructions on Writing…to become a nurturing guide to life. And right now, in the pivotal time of change when change comes with its own hobgoblins gibbering to push us back to status quo, we need just such a reminder that change, improvement, remodeling, rebuilding comes step by step, day by day, bird by bird.

Will it be the right change, we wonder, as we go thru the primary process and leaf through the seed catalogs. Hosta or hydrangea? Democrat or Republican? Two-story or rambler? Red state or blue?

Oooh, the hand-wringing potential, the obstacle building we can set up for ourselves if we let go of hope and promise and let somebody tell us change is “hoo-hah.”

But you know what, you are just you, and I am just me, and if we get it wrong, we can still work toward getting it right again. If we are willing to change.

PRAIRIE NOTE: We’re workin’ on change around here, too. Soon we’ll have links to where you can buy these books—for you and your library, just sayin’—but in the meantime, please support your local indie bookstore whenever possible.

Prairie Postcard: The "R" Word

This morning Don Imus asked: are we in recession?
Jim Cramer replied: Yes, of course we are.

There you go. We all know it. Pretending won't make it go away. Now, we can deal with it. And, as Cramer added, it will be hard.

Weird thing about life. It gets hard sometimes. The first step to solving a problem, to dealing with an addiction, is admitting you have it.

They went on to discuss the subprime market, Imus asking for a simple explanation, and Cramer supplied it. Pretty much all comes down to "skin in the game"--and haven't we heard that before. Those naughty homeowners who had no skin in the game--got those 100% loans with no money down and no ability to repay in many cases.

Except, wait, somebody else had no skin in the game either. And that's the first lender, because First Lender turns right around and sells the loan bundled with a whole bunch of others and finally they end up on the desks of places like Citicorp and... well, how long do you think it will be before these guys go whining to the government for a bailout because they're so vital to the economy....

Seems to me a little kitchen table economics--call it the "Get Real Principle"-- needs to be exercised every step of the way. Starting with common sense regulations for the lending industry so the parasites and pirates don't screw things up for everybody from the homeowner to the global economy.

PS's PS: Speaking of Get Real Principles--principles, how's that for a concept!--it doesn't get more real than 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus and his microcredit program. You can learn more about that on Saturday afternoon when Firedoglake hosts a Book Salon conversation with Mr. Yunus about Creating a World without Poverty. Whether you lurk or participate, I promise you will be enriched. Don't miss it!

Strong at the Broken Places

Because we live with disability in the Sunshine household, Richard M. Cohen's appearance this morning on the Imus show caught our attention. He's touting his new book, Strong at the Broken Places, which recounts the life experiences of five people who live with chronic illnesses.

Cohen himself [Mr. Meredith Vieira of Today Show fame--and The View infamy?] lives with multiple sclerosis and now blindness.

He hit some hot buttons we understand...the disabled are not looking for a hand...or a handout. We, disabled and caregiver alike, just want to be treated like everybody else. With this book, Cohen offers, in fact, a hand out to the "normal" community but more importantly, a reaching-out to others who daily endure the challenges of life lived as fully as possible despite the crap that is disability and chronic illness.

In their conversation, Imus and Cohen amplify a telling point: these are the stories the general public--and doctors!--don't hear enough.

Don't know about you guys, but I'm planning to get this book as soon as the local bookstore opens this morning--and if they don't have it yet, I'll be ordering it online. One for us, one for the local library, one for Mr. Sunshine's doctors, one for.... well, you get the idea. This is a long overdue subject for discussion.

Kind of like the whole business of turning the page on the status quo in politics. Enough of healthcare--and living--being dictated from the top down. Patients and caregivers' voices must be heard, and Cohen offers a much needed catapult to the conversation.

And yes, there's a website. I've already stopped by, and I hope you will, too. Tell 'em Prairie sent you... Strong at the Broken Places

On the Road Again

Heading down the Interstate this morning, meeting up with writing friends for a long overdue reunion lunch. There’ll be much talk of life and juicy womanhood for we are all of a seasoned number of years and we know each other long and well.

There’ll be talk of writing too. I’ve been thinking about that quite a lot lately. The WGA writers’ strike matters for every writer, not just WGA writers. Matters for readers and viewers, too. We note who supports it. And who scabs.

Books matter. Despite the latest electronic reader, or maybe because of it, I can think of few better moments than settling deep in a cushy chair, tucked under a lap quilt this time of year, a cup of chai nearby, and the spaniels curled at my feet. In my hands, a book.

I remember missing the school bus as a kid because my nose was buried deep in a Nancy Drew suspense.

Books I read as a student resonate anew for me living through these years of the 21^st Century. The book that most profoundly affected me and stayed in my heart was To Kill a Mockingbird. If we thought we’d left those times behind, we have only to look at a headline like the story I read last night in the NYTimes: “With Regrets, New Orleans is Left Behind.” Then a Mockingbird. Now, a city. It’s a sin to kill a city.

The writer I grew up with and visited America through the eyes of was John Steinbeck. The first time I walked the sidewalks of Monterey, tears shimmered and shuddered down my cheeks. Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl.

The pearls of value are not necklace strands, but the precious words of our youth, of our studies. Yet the times contextualize those words and lift them from the page to dance and haunt us. Just days ago, homeless man travels from Chicago and is found dead of hypothermia in a bus stop kiosk in Fargo. There was no room in the inns and shelters that night. The new shelter won’t be open until late January.

Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. Would they hold up in the re-reading?

Life’s too busy these days to know, but I have faith they would...too well. Meanwhile, there’s new stories to read. There’s a highway to travel. And if time permits, a slight detour into Sauk Centre. Every kid who went to school in Minnesota knows of Sinclair Lewis. And there is homage to be paid at the corner of Main Street and Sinclair Lewis Avenue. A timeworn hotel with the whispers of ghosts and a strong cup of coffee for the weary traveler who needs to push on.

For he wrote presciently in 1935 It Can’t Happen Here. And now we know It Can Happen Here. And yesterday, Senator Chris Dodd led the way and showed It Can Be Stopped.