We Need a New Party--a Sea Party!

The Tea Party was formed in response to voter disappointment with the Republican Party, and George Bush. The name, I gather, is a spin-off of the Boston Tea Party, the New England Colonialists' rebellion against the British Tea Tax: dumping a lot of tea into the sea.

Wonderful as that was, in the 21st Century, the concept of dumping tea into the sea is rather environmentally irresponsible--imagine the poor creatures of the sea choking upon the bombardment of a cloudy mass of dried leaves rich in caffeine and other toxins!

As someone who is disappointed in the Democratic Party, and especially annoyed by the President's false promises of hope and change, I propose that somebody (not me; I'm not a politician) start a Sea Party.

My Tentative Vision of a Sea Party

CAMPAIGN APPROACH:

•  No corporate sponsors!  In fact, the less money used, the better!
  
• All campaigning must be done by grassroots methods (such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the news networks)!
• No participation in debates, unless they are seriously conducted!
  
• Candidates would keep a running blog of logically and clearly written statements of their positions on various issues.

GENERAL PLATFORM:

• No pandering to major corporations.
• Quality public education for everyone, up through a four year college education.  We need to revise our education system, drastically, to address all sorts of issues with regard to lowering literacy rates and raising education requirements for the current job market as well as for (and more importantly) the character of our current civilization.  
• Universal healthcare that turns profit for no one but that allows for the building up of grant funds for medicinal, pharmaceutical, and similar research.
• Universal accessibility: funded by the government and large corporations.  No one should have to fight to have an interpreter (be it in signed or spoken languages), and wheel chairs should be able to go anywhere.
• Green, green, green!  Again, profit should not determine quality of life.  We need to drastically revise our transportation, industrialization, and other forms basic-lifestyle to become progressively environmentally supportive (not friendly, but nurturing).
• No religion: the president's job is to be a leader of the nation, not a priest.  It should not matter what his/her personal belief system is since he will do all he can to uphold the support of all belief institutions, within the parameters of federal law.
• Revised marriage codes: this should be done on a national level, allowing for same-sex as well as other forms of marriage.  The law should be based upon legal property and (scientifically supported) health issues, not upon moral codes.
•  And lots of other sane, rational, caring, good things!  So, I'll conclude my impossible wish list with this: a free, solar-powered computer for every household.

Baked Oatmeal

Ingredients
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. margarine, butter, or oil
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup non-fat plain yogurt
3 cups uncooked rolled oats
2 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1/3 cup peanut butter (optional)
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Beat the eggs until they are bubbly.
Add margarine (or butter or oil) and both sugars.
Mix well.
Gradually mix in the yogurt.
Add the oats, baking powder, and cinnamon.
Mix well.
Stir in the raisins, walnuts, and/or peanut butter (optional).
Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan.
Bake: 350 F for 30 minutes.
Serve warm.

9/11/2001: No Words

Remembering a Friend

Nancy working a pre-show table for For Every Man, Woman and Child.

Today is Nancy M. [Johnson] Resh's birthday.

She died suddenly over the weekend of November 15, 2010.  She was young, in her 50s.  As soon as her family had been notified, I set-up a memorial page on Facebook.  Now, I am quite confident she would never, ever have opened a Facebook account for herself (and I know this because I tried to talk her into it several times--but if she did have one, it was very private), but I did it for her students, family, and friends--Deaf and hearing alike.  I was amazed by the sudden outpouring of grief expressed on that page; even today, I look at it and whisper to myself: "Wow!"  Nancy affected a lot people in a lot of ways.  I can only legitimately write about how she affected me.

Nancy was a good friend: she accepted me for who and what I am.  While she considered herself to be a Southern Baptist, she had no qualms at my declaring myself to be a secular humanist, an atheist.  I'll never forget when, on a very, very rare moment of weakness, I shared with a student that I'm an atheist: the student began to cry.  Why did that student cry?  Out of disappointment, fear for my supposed soul, something else?  It angered me; it hurt me; I felt unaccepted for who/what I am.  I turned to my good friend, Nancy, who helped me laugh it off.

We accepted each other because, and this was a strong tie between us in our friendship, acceptance of differences was important to both of us.  We both got angry at a lot of the same things: violation of people's basic human rights, mistreatment of the Deaf, lazy and/or manipulative people,  bad (ex- or mostly ex-) husbands, uncooperative computers, intolerance, self-centeredness, badly made coffee, and so on.  We both laughed at a lot of the same things--we joked about almost everything.  Our friendship mostly centered at and around our jobs, but since our jobs were the center of our lives  (at least they seemed to be), our friendship grew rapidly.  We did a lot of projects together and we supported each other in individually lead projects, too.  While my projects were more scholarly-focused, Nancy's were more people focused--we balanced each other out that way: I kept encouraging her to work on scholastic projects; she kept pushing me to become more involved with people (instead of books and DVDs).  I considered her to be one of my best friends.

The things I have learned (or re-learned) from (or with) Nancy: not to take my job so seriously, to stop and have fun once-in-awhile, to take better care of myself,  and to ignore all the bullshit we (all of us) encounter day-in and day-out.

I have noticed that several people have wished Nancy "Happy Birthday!" on the memorial Facebook page.  I have to say it: I don't believe that Nancy "is looking down on us" or that she exists in some form of afterlife (in heaven or elsewhere).  I do believe, however, that it would have made Nancy cry to learn just how loved she was and still is.  I do believe that Nancy would have been shocked by all the affection sent in her direction.  I do believe that all this affection and attention is a source of comfort for both her friends and her family.  I do believe that the words, "Happy Birthday Nancy!" have special meaning--rather like "Happy Hanukkah!" or "Happy Halloween!"  They are words of love, and as such are powerful.

Drawing by Giles Johnson.