Go take a break

I intend to. I will be in NYC tomorrow, attending a family graduation (go, Ryan!) and will return Friday a.m. to the Worldwide Dating Jesus Platform.

Meanwhile, add the names to the list you want the All-Girl Prayer and Meditation Circle to consider, below.

Who needs heaven when you have a Middletown sunset?

And thanks, David Bauer, for this shot.

This is kind of cool

And thanks, Cynical, for the link.

And — just as a reminder — we are on Day 14 of our Hillbilly Watch. Someone? Do the right thing.

And while we wait, check out Indiegogo and this particular fund-raising effort. Go, hillbillies! Up over $400,000! Go, everyone!

I did it all by myself.

In fact, I didn’t.

There’s a running theme among politicians of a certain stripe who insist that successful business owners, for one group of people, are successful strictly by dint of their hard work.

No one’s denying running a business takes a lot of work, and running a successful one takes even more than that — like luck, and government tax breaks. We keep forgetting that no one does it alone. Unless you’re a party of one (Hi, Joe Lieberman!), you got to where you are — for good or for ill — because you had help.

How much help? Let me start:

In my pursuit of my journalism career, I put in long hours and I worked hard. I also had some lucky breaks, either from bosses who allowed me my quirks, or from being in the right place at the right time. Neither took great reportorial skills. I was handed things.

I paid my way through college by working three jobs at once, and by applying for and getting scholarships — and by taking out loans. I qualified for at least one of those scholarships because of my ethnicity (a little Irish). I did nothing spectacular or noteworthy to be a little Irish. It just happened. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Dad! I don’t remember what percentage of the total college bill my Kiss-me-I’m-Irish scholarship paid, but I know I needed every penny.

I am able to afford a house because of a complex system set up in my favor as a wage-earning Caucasian. I am accorded a certain spot at any table I choose to grace for precisely those same reasons. I work hard for my wages. I do absolutely nothing to be a Caucasian. It’s like being handed a gift basket every day (and I’m not even entirely Caucasian, though I look the part). In fact, I could work my life in such a way that the only time I am forced to think about race is when I walk into a roomful of people who aren’t Caucasian, and I can make it so that that never happens. For my Latina/African American/Middle Eastern friends, that is not an option. (And I do not exercise that option because being only with people who look, smell, and sound like yourself is boring.)

I believe — and this won’t make my popular with everyone — that I came along at a time when certain industries were looking to increase the number of women they had on staff. Because of the hard work of feminists before me, I, as a woman, may have been hired strictly as a token. I guarantee once the door was open, I blew through it and I earned my position, but I know of at least two occasions when I was hired strictly because of my gender. (No worries, though. I also can recite instances where I was treated as less-than because of my gender; I’m not saying it evens out. I’m saying that it hasn’t been all bad, being a girl.)

Let’s see…there are probably umpteen more occasions in which I was given a really good seat simply because I showed up. You?

(And thanks, Susan G., for the nudge on this.)

This just broke my heart

We went to the Sikh (pronounced “sick“) candlelight vigil on Friday in Southington, Conn., and it was moving and hard and sad and beautiful, all at once. There was much talk about Sikh teachings of peace, and love for one another.

One young man who came to the vigil holds a Sikh Awareness Day every year at his service station in Norwich. This year, it was in June. He tries to pick a time of year when people are traveling, and might come by his station on West Town Street. By way of explanation, he said:

Just to let you know in our religion we never tell anyone to convert…with Sikh awareness day, we just wanted to educate people who we are.

I personally believe that if you follow the religion you are born and if I follow mine, one day we both will meet at same point.

Yep. I believe that, too.

There were probably 300-350 people at the vigil, not all of them Sikhs and not all of them wearing head coverings, though the Sikhs provided headscarves and bandanas to any who came without them (like my husband, and don’t think I didn’t get all Church Lady on him for that).

While people held candles, a steady stream of speakers went to the microphone. When Dr. M. Saud Anwar spoke — he’s a Muslim and the vigil was held near sundown, when he could have been somewhere enjoying his iftar — he asked how many in the crowd were not Sikhs. I started to raise my hand and he said, “Today, we are all Sikhs.”

Yep. I believe that, too.

Prayers for the Sikhs, then. That would be all of us.

I thought it was telling that the man with the poster put Joplin — where a Muslim mosque burned down a week ago — before Wisconsin, site of the awful Sikh gurdwara (temple) shooting, the reason we came together for a vigil. Maybe I’m reading too much into this — maybe he was just listing crime scenes alphabetically — but I thought it telling that the man put others’ pain before his own.

We are on Day 7 of the Hillbilly Watch, during which those of us blessed to be hillbilly stand waiting for that someone — and there is a someone — who knows something about the mosque burning to do the right thing, and tell the FBI or the Jasper County sheriffs what they know. You can raise all the money in the world (and you can hold multiple vigils) but you must also hold accountable those who would do harm.

I am Joplin

Read what the Joplin Globe (my old paper!) has to say about the mosque-burning.

And check out what the Episcopals did in Joplin. Iftar with God’s Frozen Chosen! What a beautiful gesture from St. Philip’s.

And welcome to Day 4 of Hillbilly Watch. Let’s go, hillbillies. Do the right thing.

And thanks, Carole, for the link.

We all give God the blues.

And thanks, Cynical, for the link. For more on Shawn Mullins, go here.

True love floats

This from Mike the Heathen, a touching story about a 19-year old rescue dog who falls asleep every night in the arms of his loving owner, and the warm waters of Lake Superior.

The photo went viral. Big surprise.

You need to read this

Hall of Famer Curtis Martin telling it like it is.

It’s long, and it’s heartbreaking and it’s worth the time, I promise.

Where the hell is Matt? Still dancing.

And thanks, Cynical, for the link.

For more on Connecticut’s own Where-the-Hell-Is-Matt, go here.