Remember the Need

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Greed's dominated this country too much and too long, and you don't need me to repeat the stories of the repercussions of that.

Instead, right now, please remember the need.

Food pantries are strained beyond their limits. Fuel assistance programs can use donations, too. You can find 'em in your hometown if you just take the time to look.

In Fargo, the Great Plains Food Pantry provides food for those in need statewide and in northern Minnesota. And SENDCAA helps people with emergency heating assistance. They're in the phone book.

I'll bet there are places just like 'em in your community and phone book, too.

This holiday season, open your hearts...and your checkbooks. No, I'm not giving you links. Part of this process is you...seeking out where you can make a difference.

And knowing that you're one vital voice in restoring the better angels of our America.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

On Hiatus

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We're takin' a little break from blogging in Prairie Country. Stepping out into the Real World. You know, the place that's there when you step away from the keyboard.

A Real World where amid all the dire news—pick yer poison yerself, I'm not linking to any of it right now, not even the shameful KBR who should all get lumps of coal in their stockings...in their hometown hoosegows—still there are moments of warmth and hope.

Where college kids freeze their buns off even with their snowmobile suits collecting supplies and clothing for the local women's shelter in single-digit temperatures in the grocery store parking lot today.

Where the bell ringer inside said grocery store is an old friend from long ago. And the chatting is cheery while tucking money into the slot.

And a bag-full of pet food and medicine goes into the bin at the local Petco—a bin already brimming.

And despite the raw winds of the Real World, smiles build. Go ahead, go out there with a giving heart and give it a try. I guarantee you'll smile, too.
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That fat kid? He's starving to death.

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This is the season of bounty. Of farmers harvesting crops, produce arriving in the stores from all over the hemisphere. The papers are chock full of coupons...for cranberries, and pumpkin pie mix, and turkey, and..... Thanksgiving is just around the corner.

But for too many kids, there is no thanks-giving. These are the kids who go to school with empty bellies, or who eat foods empty of nutrition, so that even if they look overweight, inside, their bodies are dying. Deficiencies of essential minerals will stunt their growth, trigger diabetes, slow their metabolisms.

The statistics on hunger are shocking in their growth. But every statistic is a child, a single mom, struggling to stretch too few groceries to last not long enough. A food pantry trying to provide food with too few supplies on their shelves. Christy has more at firedoglake.

Charities are already appealing for help, more help this year than ever. So many to choose among, how can we possibly supply them all? It seems so daunting. Yet who can turn a blind eye to the need?

Next time, every time you go to the grocery store, look for the collection bin or cart for your local food pantry. Next time, every time you get an envelope in the mail, send back a check. Next time, every time you walk past a red kettle, drop in some coin.

Who me, you think? What difference can I make, just one person. And then you remember...one person built a presidential campaign. Because so many pitched in that even when amounts were small, they added up to a mountain.

Can we do any less for one hungry child?
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When I launched this blog nearly a year ago, one of the earliest posts I wrote was about the dire state of hunger in Haiti, "Let Them Eat Mud Cookies." 'tis a sorrowful thing indeed that instead of progress, things have gotten worse even here at home.

We've a chance now for a fresh start. Start today...help your hometown hungry as well as those far away. And you'll enjoy your own Thanksgiving turkey a whole lot more.
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(crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)

Postcard from Prairie Country: Bag It!

Instead of just tossing your empty Christmas gift bags this year, fill them. With those "I don't use them anymore, but they're too good to throw away..." items that will help your local charity thrift stores replenish for the New Year.
Merry Christmas from Prairie.

When Nobody's Lookin'

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about honor and dignity. A vow made to us the way a groom promises to his bride on their wedding day. And when the groom turns abusive and instead of honoring his bride and treating her with dignity, he leaves bruises and scars.

Maybe those bruises don’t show on the outside, but they’re there in the spirit and fiber…of a person, of a family, of a nation.

Honor, my dear ol’ dad taught me in childhood, is what you do, how you act, when nobody’s lookin’. These days, it seems honor is in such short supply in some quarters that the nobody’s lookin’ part doesn’t even slow them down.

Senator McConnell’s recent “Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.” was not an honorable comment. Or attitude.

Down the road a ways here in Fargo is the YWCA’s shelter for women and children. We pass them daily on our commute—all seven minutes of it—from home to Mr. Sunshine’s workplace. The shelter’s bursting at the seams these days, with more women, more children needing shelter day by day. Where’s the honor in that?

Veterans of World War II have been flying from Prairie Country to Washington DC in Honor Flights of late. Spearheaded by local radio talker Tracy Briggs, the trips take cajoling for some of the old vets. Dad never talked much about his Marine years in the Pacific in WW II. But I like to think he would have appreciated the honor his surviving comrades are being shown these days.

WW II vets who did the same intelligence work as is being done today have spoken out against using torture like waterboarding’s controlled drowning as a method to gain information. They honorably serve us all still by speaking out.

Honor means admitting your mistakes, accepting your imperfections while always striving to do better. Senator Edwards says his Iraq vote was wrong. He’s shown both dignity and passion in his campaign to make right that choice.

I have hope right now that the honor I see in talker Don Imus will overcome his mistakes and imperfections. His campaign support for the Boriken neighborhood health care center now exemplifies that honor.

Honor requires thinking. But it also requires an inner spirit of honesty and selflessness that is not valued enough these days. “Greed is good” rules, instead of One America. Changing that will take work. There is much tilling of the soil to be done…not just in Prairie Country, but in Washington and all of America.

We used to value work a lot more than we do now. These days, it’s all about the bravado and the big lie. Talking about the Greatest Generation without living up to it. Like showy annual flowers that wilt at the first drought and die away at the first deep frost.

It’s the deep roots that endure…the well-set roots of community and neighborhood over selfish individuals sucking up all the moisture.

Yesterday, when I drove to my disabled husband’s workplace, a Rochester Armoured Express van was blocking the graded sidewalk. When I waved our disability parking card at him, he ignored me. When my husband wheeled out of the building, and waved the driver forward, he inched ahead.

When I got out of the car and asked the driver to please move, he looked at me and said, “there’s handicapped parking…I’m not blocking that.”

“No, but you’re blocking the sidewalk so my husband can’t get around your van to get to the handicapped parking space.”

The driver stared straight ahead until the courier hopped in next to him, then the van sped away. Honor? None there.

But a man in a wheelchair, disabled and enduring serious diseases, waiting patiently because a driver saw the handicapped parking but didn’t see, didn’t want to see, that he blocked the way…that man in the wheelchair…he has dignity.

There are lots of people in wheelchairs, lots of soldiers with injuries, lots of good Americans treated with dishonor. They deserve better. They deserve our thoughts and our supportive actions. They deserve our honor. It’s not enough to talk about it. It’s time to roll up our shirtsleeves and get back to work.

And that will lead us all back to our own honor and dignity. And the whole country will be the better for it.