kmkat and her kneedles

Hurrah!

Scroll down to #14. I am so happy I don't need to apologize for this particular piece of crap anymore.

Winter is coming.

I was ready for cool weather -- layer on the warmth, snuggle up, hot drinks, etc. -- but I was not quite ready for snow yet. Happily, it mostly melted right away. 

Winter is coming.

The dark comes an hour earlier -- boo! hiss! -- but there is light peeking around the shade when I wake up in the morning.

Winter is coming.

The election is over, the results are in, sadness all around. Our efforts increased voter turnout in our county by nearly 10% -- yay! -- but not enough to swing the state and local elections.

Winter is coming.

Now we must gather the political signs from the roadsides and the hay fields and stow them safely in a barn somewhere.

Winter is coming.

In more ways than cold and darkness. 

Get out there and vote!

photo credit: Ѕolo via photopin cc

I haven't actually done it quite yet. Gotta wait until Smokey is up and dressed and fed and ready to move. Then we will drive to the fire station in town and cast our votes. No waiting in line here. 

Just for yuks, I am going to show you some of the  photos that came up when I seached for "vote" on PhotoPin.com:

photo credit: ecstaticist via photopin cc

photo credit: angela7dreams via photopin cc

 
photo credit: kirikiri via photopin cc

photo credit: Tony Fischer Photography via photopin cc

photo credit: PetitPlat - Stephanie Kilgast via photopin cc

 
photo credit: Sokwanele - Zimbabwe via photopin cc

 

And finally, my favorite GOTV* image of them all.

 

* GOTV = Get Out The Vote. 

 

I have nothing else to do so I think I'll do NaBloPoMo.

photo credit: the new world via photopin cc

Ha. Today's post is brought to you by leafleting and door knocking, which is what I am doing.

No, that's a lie. I will be sitting in the mobile office with my knitting and perhaps a hot beverage as others do the leafleting and door knocking using the maps and voter lists that I created, printed, and organized.

We do what we can. I can't walk more than a block, but I can organize and download and print and cheer from the sidelines. And tweet. And blog.

 

Oh, happy day!

Why, yes, I AM smiling today!

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar via photopin cc
photo credit: ViaMoi via photopin cc
photo credit: Emerging Birder via photopin cc

Joss Whedon endorses Romney. And the Greatest Generation tells you what they think (NSFW).

 

Just in case you thought he was the PEOPLE'S governor.

    

And he is only campaigning for governor of a relatively unimportant Midwestern state...

(graphics from http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance)

::sigh::

I guess Glenn Beck's followers are more willing to vote with their dollars...

Found @ The Fork Party.

Election day. Finally.

I decided to do my own Ten on Tuesday list this week.

Ten Reasons to Vote Today.

1. Nifty sticker to wear on your lapel. "I voted!"
2. Cute election judges... if you are a 70+ year old male.
3. Free coffee and cookies.
4. Opportunity to see your local community center / fire hall / village hall / elementary school full of people with good intentions.
5. A chance to knit (while standing in line).
6. The only time you will see some of these names in print. County coroner? County assessor? Who are these people?
7. Polling place just might be near your LYS. Everyone who votes deserves a yarn treat.
8. Easiest way in the world to be a patriot.
9. Chance to do something that millions would [and have] die[d] for the right to do.
   
   And finally, the very best reason of all...
10. If you don't vote you lose the right to complain about your government.

* * * * *

I'm sick of campaign ads, junk mail, the media buzz, and especially the recorded phone calls. Campaign signs, though, are kinda fun. I first noticed them when we were in Wyoming in June. There were campaign signs everywhere. Didn't notice [m]any in Montana, though. Later in the summer I saw them on the North Shore, plus they started to crop up here at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               As they say in Chicago, Vote early! Vote often!                   !

Rally to restore sanity/fear.

The 100 best signs, from buzzfeed via The Daily What. My favorite:

 

Vote in November. Please.

Two people*, who are both my friends on Facebook but who live 1,400 miles apart and have never met and probably never will, both posted a link to this video. I took that to be a sign that I should spread the video a bit further.

asd

* Fred was in my Jeopardy! audition group; unlike me, he appeared on the show, was a three-day champion, and won, iirc, $60,000+. Dorothy is a [former?] knitblogger who lives in the Pacific NW. Hi, Fred! Hi, Dorothy!

Wingnut Of The Year.

Thanks to soxanne for the link.

Bits and pieces.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Smokey's cousin G concerning her son and DIL in Chicago:

[Son] and [daughter-in-law] had a baby girl this morning, however, Son delivered the baby at their house!  DIL started having labor pains about 3 a.m. and called the doctor about 5:30, and the doctor told her she still had several hours yet, but DIL was having intense labor pains and was waiting for Son to get 2-year-old Daughter ready.  So then she went into the bathroom and started screaming at Son and Son had to leave 2-yo Daughter in the highchair, and the baby's head was coming out.  So Son called 911 and they walked him through delivering the baby.  What was scary for him was getting her to breathe, but she did and he tied off the cord, then the paramedics got there and they let him cut the cord since he did all the work. No name yet, they are both in shock still.  She is 7 pounds 8 ounces (smaller then 2-yo daughter, she was 8 pounds 11 ounces), but she is nursing and DIL and the little girl are doing great.  Son said he remembered in the Navy not to panic or things could get worse, so he decided, well, I guess I am going to deliver a baby this morning!  He did great and so did DIL.  I'll send the name later and some pictures.           - Cousin G.

.

Maggie, #2 son's gf, was looking through my copy of Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. She noted model after model dressed in a hand-knit sweater and underpants and nothing else, except for the one model who appeared to be wearing the obligatory hand-knit sweater and a strategically placed cereal bowl. "Put some pants on!" she kept telling the models. She even called #2 son into the room to look at one particularly egregious fashion disaster -- I believe it involved a tank top, hand-knit skirt, patterned tights, and patterned shoes. "Ewwwww," was their consensus.

And that is my review of THAT book.

.

If you have a natural Christmas tree, remember to water it:

.

I would like to point out that on this, the last weekend of Good Old 2008, I finally updated my 2008 FO folder (link in the sidebar). That felt so darned good that I updated my Ravelry projects page. And if I ever take the frickin' fotos, I will update my stash page, too. Warning: don't hold your breath.

.

I got another interesting couple of e-mails. Here is what they both looked like, except that the addressee -- which is not my e-mail address, btw -- was slightly different:

I immediately checked my PayPal account and was not surprised to see no such charge. I most assuredly did NOT click on the "Dispute Transaction" link near the bottom of the e-mail. If nothing else about the e-mail screams "Scam!" at you, at least look at the *math* in the middle. Sheesh.

.

I have had a tab open in Firefox all day long for Webs, debating about whether to order the Silky Wool for the Baby Cables & Big Ones, too (really stupid name for that pattern) sweater. I finally decided on a good neutral color (50) and the total $ turned out to be far less than I had previously estimated. (What was I thinking? Why did it take me so long to figure out their "discounts"?) But I had resolved not to buy any yarn this year, and I need to finish the kimono sweater OTN. The Lavold yarn is in my cart. Update: the yarn is ordered; frugality and common sense be damned.

BTW, did you know that when you are on a pattern page in Ravelry like the one I linked to, you can click on the "Yarns" tab at the top -- not the "Yarns" tab at the very top, instead the "Yarns" tab between "Details" and "nnn projects" -- and see all the different yarns that people have used for that particular pattern? Sweet feature!

.

This blog, Clusterfuck Nation by James Kunstler, is an interesting -- albeit depressing -- read. There is definitely a good deal of truth in what he says. I question his precise timing, but not his underlying thesis, which is that our present mode of life is unsustainable and will end sooner rather than later.

From today's (extremely long) post:

There are two realities "out there" now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let's call it the Status Quo) is that our problems of finance and economy will self-correct and allow the project of a "consumer" economy to resume in "growth" mode. This view includes the idea that technology will rescue us from our fossil fuel predicament -- through "innovation," through the discovery of new techno rescue remedy fuels, and via "drill, baby, drill" policy. This view assumes an orderly transition through the current "rough patch" into a vibrant re-energized era of "green" Happy Motoring and resumed Blue Light Special shopping.
      The minority reality (let's call it The Long Emergency) says that it is necessary to make radically new arrangements for daily life and rather soon. It says that a campaign to sustain the unsustainable will amount to a tragic squandering of our dwindling resources. It says that the "consumer" era of economics is over, that suburbia will lose its value, that the automobile will be a diminishing presence in daily life, that the major systems we've come to rely on will founder, and that the transition between where we are now and where we are going is apt to be tumultuous.
      My own view is obviously the one called The Long Emergency.
      ...The dialectic between the two realities can't be sorted out between the stupid and the bright, or even the altruistic and the selfish. The various tech industries are full of MIT-certified, high-achiever Status Quo techno-triumphalists who are convinced that electric cars or diesel-flavored algae excreta will save suburbia, the three thousand mile Caesar salad, and the theme park vacation. The environmental movement, especially at the elite levels found in places like Aspen, is full of Harvard graduates who believe that all the drive-in espresso stations in America can be run on a combination of solar and wind power. I quarrel with these people incessantly. It seems especially tragic to me that some of the brightest people I meet are bent on mounting the tragic campaign to sustain the unsustainable in one way or another. But I have long maintained that life is essentially tragic in the sense that history won't care if we succeed or fail at carrying on the project of civilization.

.

Guess who has been having fun with TypePad's variety of fonts and colors today?

Secretary of [Sustainable] Food.

From Nicholas Kristof's 12/10/08 op-ed piece in the NYTimes:

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food".

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”

From Ethicurean.com:

Around 90 sustainable-ag/food stalwarts — including Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, and Bill Niman — have sent a letter to the Obama transition team, listing six awesome candidates for what they called “the sustainable choice for the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.”  Any one of them would be a great ally for the food movement:

1. Gus Schumacher, Former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture.
   
2. Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE.
3. Sarah Vogel, former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, attorney, Bismarck, ND.
4. Fred Kirschenmann, organic farmer, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY.
5. Neil Hamilton, attorney, Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA.

Well, that letter has been turned into an online petition at Food Democracy Now, where you can all sign it.

If you think this is something the Obama transition team should consider, please sign today. There were 45,000+ signatures on the petition when I signed it, up from 36,000 on December 12, when the second article, above, was written. That writer thought that if the petition got to 100,000 signatures within the next few days it would "...mean serious pressure for Obama to appoint a reformer as Secretary of Agriculture."

Evacuation plan no longer necessary.

Found at the Iceland Weather Report. Thankfully, I no longer need to think about this alternative.

* * * * *

As long as I am sort-of ranting, I might as well throw this in from yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

One other worry some observers have about the [bailout of the banks and other financial institutions]: In the six weeks since lawmakers approved Treasury's plans and set in train the massive spending and financial reorganizing it entails, "no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste," the Washington Post reports. "It's a mess," Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department's inspector general, tells the paper. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."

Remember the first days and weeks after the US invaded Iraq, and how millions (or was it billions?) of dollars of cash -- often in the form of pallets of bundled $100 bills -- were *distributed* with no oversight? Sheesh. For being from a party that traditionally stands for fiscal conservatism, this administration sure doesn't get it.

* * * * *

Thank you for all your kind words yesterday about our Tabby. Gone but not forgotten, she now joins Junior and Zoot and Sheba and Daisy Bumble and Pius and Argyle, other cats we have loved, in that Great Litter Box in the Sky.

Jump!

The above song played in my iTunes queue on Monday as I was reading blogs. Pretty soon I was dancing in my chair and realized that the reason was this scene in Love, Actually.

That song -- and the one below -- pretty much describe how I feel today.

The next generation.

E-mail from #2 son this afternoon:

"On my way to Lynhurst Community Center to make a difference. In my pocket I have my US passport and a cell phone bill due within 30 days of today.
"GOBAMA!
"Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile"

The future starts today.