Time time time what has become of me? No -- the Simon & Garfunkel song I am thinking of is Scarborough Fair-- yes Good Nature's design has Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme right on the top row.
Had to do it.
I grew up with Simon & Garfunkel crooning -- and we merged their beautiful song with Mike Lee @ Colvos Creek Nursery's beautiful color pencil art.
Garden Herbs has 32 of your favorite herbs illustrated in a beautiful garden scene-- with close ups on foliage, common and botanic names around the border.
Chervil, borage & costmary didn't make the top ten folk song-- but they're on the list, too.
Check them out here -- and please tell your favorite master gardener organization that they can order 100 Garden Herb posters for just $2.00 ea
Great deal for outreach, education and fund raising at your local plant sale.
I think stories are crucial- what makes us human. Spring is full of reincarnation. It can be annoying how love works in the world. Watch this little gem of a movie and enjoy.
Donner Party Democrats - New York Times: "One of their leaders had been hanging around the camp of another preacher man, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. — a nutball like Robertson, blaming America for bringing on the horrid attack. What is it with these men of God? Should have left them home." -- This essay by Tim Egan.
Egan is emblematic of liberal, articulate writers who take Fox News excerpts as gospel-- and run with the herd by piling on Obama for having a "nutball" minister on the left as off his rocker as Robertson on the right.
All well and good -- except it isn't true.
We can only hope that the adolescent hour and all the fun it is to be right gets balanced by people as smart as Egan actually doing some of their own research instead of piling on with Fox.
I wonder -- is it just because I grew up in a black city -- Detroit in the 60's? It took me a week to spend the 9 minutes to watch Rev. Wright's comments in context of his sermon -- which was about violence begetting violence, terrorism nurturing more terrorism. Americans terrifying people?
If you take the time to listen to Wright's sermon-- not just the "chickens coming home to roost" I can see what Rev. Wright is talking about America's responsibility in terrifying people all over the world. ( See the previous post here at Good Nature Notes )
How quick we are to judge.
A little research effort and I find Rev. Wright is a well respected main stream Protestant minister -- who sees Jesus as a black man-- the same way that I grew up seeing Jesus looking like my beautiful white self.
Not only does Wright struggle with what it means to be Christian today-- but he shows up with his congregation of 8000 middle class blacks and some whites -- and ministers to the poor-- builds homes, runs food banks, serves others.
How easy is it to throw stones at someone you don't know.
After reviewing several longer excerpts of Wright's sermons -- I am glad Obama found him 20 years ago. The man has done some good work calling evil by its name. We may not like thinking of invasions in Africa to steal people and make them slaves, to more recent days in Viet Nam, napalming villages as evil. We may not like reflecting on the trillions of dollars we have spent killing civilians and "suspected insurgents" in Afghanistan, Iraq, Grenada, Sudan, Columbia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Panama, Grenada.
But our American tax dollars were spent to kill not just a few people trying to get through the day-- working people like you and me. We ought to be uncomfortable. We could be angry-- hard to believe white people getting angry -- but it could happen.
So after reviewing all the facts I understand why Obama stood by his pastor-- why run for political cover when his church is doing so much good?
I like to think that there will be some reconsideration of the harsh judgement the Right's Fox TV pitched out with it's out of context video snippet. Here's nine minutes of Rev. Wright's sermon for context:
I like to think that NYT's Egan was being lazy and having fun putting his narrative for the Donner Party together -- it was a Saturday column after all. It is easy to understand.
But he's written books on race, a fine book on the Dustbowl. Didn't Egan know enough to not simply stand up and salute Fox News' distorting the facts and digital lynching?
That's a word every American knows. Lynching. Brothers and sisters know it. You and I have seen it-- blacks lynched while hundreds of whites picnic, out for a day in the sun.
White Americans may not recognize themselves in the mirror that Black Americans hold up for us to reflect on-- we hold these truths to be self evident-- that we are all equally imperfect.
But maybe the time to reflect for a moment -- to truly reflect and see the other person's story entirely won't make your story disappear.
Deep in my heart, I do believe we shall over come some day. Obama is now officially a human being-- knocked off his pedestal, a mere mortal who articulates a view of the world and America's place in it that I find refreshing after 8 arid years of fear and oil profiteering by George Hoover Bush.
Barack has friends and family who fart, say things you don't like and still gets up and says let's make tomorrow better. So do I.
Thought you might like to see the whole nine minutes to gather context for the 1 minute taken out of context and used to attack.
Slime ball politics from the right wing is warming up. Get ready for a big fight this fall.
The bottom line for me is that Rev Wright's 70 programs to serve the poor and his middle class black church in Chicago are doing good work in the world. Jesus would be at home there.
Jerome sums it all up for me- the way out of middle class Americans head fake as they lose income over the past decade isn't working any more. Too much debt by the rich and powerful big banks collapsing is now rippling through the lives and siphoning income from those of us who like to think of ourselves as middle class. The large margin call on all the debt crisis has a green progressive answer.
Read post to see a good assessment of where we are now (thanks Wall St. Journal) and where we can be if we get organized -- for a green economy that grows jobs, fresh air, and powers America on our own energy.
Time to stop looking busy and really get busy. It is a short life. Make yourself proud.
Scorched-Earth Strategy Returns to Darfur - New York Times Genocide, burned homes, disbelief and inaction by the rest of the world. Sound familiar? Darfur may not have concentration camps, but the murder and mayhem is as bad as it was for Jews in Germany.
