Ad Libitum

Many-trunked fortress of spring

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:21:00 GMT

Photo taken on Kellogg Blvd. in St. Paul, MN

branches fret
Annette Marie Hyder

twine their legion fingers
and wring their bark-skinned hands
with a cold like this
even the twigs tremble
sap freezes
in the vein-stemmed interior
and the heart of spring
heretofore impregnable and unassailable
falters momentarily
in its many-trunked fortress.

I think of trees, with their sap filled trunks as strongholds against the cold of winter preserving the heartbeat of spring -- no matter how faint. The trees, evergreen and deciduous alike, are a many-trunked fortress and to wander through a forest in winter is to twine through time suspended. It's warming to know that the sap will rise, springtime will break free from well-meaning restraints of dark bark and warding wood, will come forth like a butterfly from the hard protective covering of its chrysalis and kiss those stalwart towers with pennant leaves and flowers.

Dog on a roof

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:30:00 GMT

Image courtesy Kare11 News

I haven't been up on a roof in a while but I especially remember enjoying the get-away properties inherent in our flat-roofed house in Palma Sola, Florida. My older sister called in vain for me to come and do the dishes. I was happily ensconced with a blanket and book and wouldn't reemerge for hours (or until the dishes were done without me). I also had a favorite tree that I climbed that combined the same escape advantage with an excellent reading perch.

Well here is a story about a dog here in Minnesota whose love of climbing up on roofs lies in far more industrious motivations. Hayley, a golden retriever feels that she is part of the DeMars construction crew and 'climbs a ladder as well as any other member of the crew.'

Kare11 News reports:

MANKATO, Minn. -- It's the slow time of year for the construction business, but when your public relations representative is a Golden Retriever named Hayley, jobs for DeMars Construction in Mankato seem to come a little easier.

No short of unusual, Hayley brings to the table a skill unlike any other dog-gone carpenter.

Hayley is able to climb up a ladder as well as any other on the team.

"She's one of the guys, part of the crew," said owner Max DeMars, who by the way is not directly related to the author of this story.

And like the crew, Hayley too can handle a two-by-four.

Since she was a pup, Hayley, now 10 years old, follows the crew wherever they go.

"One day we were up on the roof and there she was," explained DeMars. "Saying what about me."

After hundreds of jobs over the years, she's got a pretty good handle on climbing up the ladder, even when nobody else is up on the roof.

One cold January day her solo trip nearly got her in some hot water.

The crew was working on an addition for the Hosanna Lutheran Church in Mankato when a neighbor spotted her on top of the building.

The neighbor called police and a short time later an officer arrived.

Continue reading the story
Watch the video

Links of interest:
Rooftop Ice Skating Rink
Rooftops and Urban Agriculture
Lyrics to 'Up On the Roof' sung by James Taylor, Lyrics by Gerry Goffin - Carole King

Baptist American group in Haiti: saving orphans or child trafficking?

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:09:00 GMT

USA Today reports:

U.S. group held after fleeing Haiti with children

American church members say they were saving orphans. Haitian officials allege an adoption scheme.

Members of a church group that tried to take Haitian children out of the country may have succumbed to an urge many humanitarian groups feel but resist, aid organizations say.

Ten American Baptists were scheduled to have a hearing today in the Haitian capital after trying to take 33 children out of Haiti at a time of growing fears over possible child trafficking.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children even though they lacked the proper paperwork to do so.

"The instinct to swoop in and rescue children may be a natural impulse," Deb Barry, a child-protection expert with Save the Children, said in a statement Sunday. "The possibility of a child being mistakenly labeled an orphan in the chaotic aftermath of the disaster is incredibly high."

Instead of ferrying children out of Haiti, Save the Children and UNICEF say they're working to register children, including the 33 traveling with the Baptist group, to reunite family members who may be looking for one another.

The incident comes after Haiti's government halted adoptions over concern that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to child trafficking.

Social Affairs Minister Yves Cristallin said the Americans were suspected of taking part in an illegal adoption scheme.

The group said its "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was an effort to save abandoned children from death by taking them to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic. The church members were arrested Friday night on a bus traveling with earthquake survivors ages 2 months to 12 years.

"In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing," the group's spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said at the judicial police headquarters in the capital where the Americans were being held. No charges had been filed.

"Just because it's a natural disaster doesn't mean you can cut corners under what is under normal circumstances a legal and well-thought-out process," Patrick McCormick of UNICEF said.

Read the entire article here.

Hastiness and ill-conceived actions

The plans of the diligent one surely make for advantage, but everyone that is hasty surely heads for want. -- Proverbs 21:5
(Link to various translations of Proverbs 21:5)

However sincere and well-meaning the group of Baptist Americans may have been in their adoption fiasco, they would have done well to apply the above cited biblical scripture to their church organized actions. Anyone can identify with the desire to help the afflicted and save the distressed, but helping and saving have to be done in accordance with well-established rules and protocol.

Like the man from UNICEF said, "You can't just go and take a child out of a country no matter what country you're in. This is not what is done. There are processes that need to be followed. You can't just pick up a child and walk out of the country with the child, clearly, no matter what your best intentions are." -- Kent Page, spokesman for UNICEF in Haiti.

Quote source: ABC News

Widows and fatherless boys
Annette Marie Hyder

Were our clothes old
hand-me-down, second time around
G/goodwill leftovers?

Did we feel the same?

You gave us your
glances down noses
picked clean of any
imperfections,
your shoulder stiff
from the effort of saying
rejection with embrace.

Did we notice?

Your exhortations
to live and be content
with little
came speckled with fat,
with cream, with gravy
from your food heavy mouth.

Could we hear you
through that mush?

The chill of our want
pricks along my mind
goose flesh the cloth
we had in common --
deprivations bind.

We see your shoulders breaking
in the vise of your hypocrisy.

Your teeth are soft now
like mushrooms
from the decay you spout.
We watch them fall
out of your mouth
that has been as used
as a cliché.

Not all snow is beautiful

Annette Marie Hyder — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:04:00 GMT

By Annette Marie Hyder

This snow -- pushed to the sides of the highway
lumpy and looking like batting, like long crib bumpers
for the cars racing around the cradle shaped highway --
is so dirty it looks purple. Not a deep royal purple
but a gray dingy purple that hints at bruises, crashes
and permanent cots.

The Feminist Art Project: free day of panels on current feminist art issues

Annette Marie Hyder — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:30:00 GMT

Would you like to attend a day of FREE panels from The Feminist Art Project? Here's all the information you need. Check it out!

___________________________________________________________________

Saturday, February 13, 2010
9am - 5pm
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago

The Feminist Art Project (TFAP)announces the schedule for its special Day of Panels at the 2010College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference in Chicago in February 2010. TFAP will present a series of extraordinary forums on Saturday, February 13th,9am -5pm. The annual day of panels is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

The TFAP Day of Panels is organized by Maria Elena Buszek, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, School of Liberal Arts, Kansas City Art Institute. The Day of Panels will address pressing feminist issues concerning contemporary feminist practices for artists, critics, and scholars,featuring collaborations between speakers from these fields, presented as dialogues and performances that would otherwise rarely find a comfortable space in the traditional CAA conference sessions.

All events will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Acapulco, Gold Level,West Tower, 151 East Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60601.

Schedule for The Feminist Art Project Day of Panels, February 13, 2010

9:00-10:30am When No Means More Than No
This panel will evaluate instances wherein “no” might mean more than no—or less.

10:45am-12:00 pm Feminist Artists and Feminist Curators: AConversation About Collaboration
This round table conversation featuring feminist curators and artists will address the challenges, pleasures, and workaday details of contemporary feminist creative and curatorial practices.

12:30-1:45 pm Wandering Uteri, de/reConstructed Vulvas, andArchitectures of Hospitality
In this provocative presentation, cyberfeminist artists/health activists/scholars combine research, on-the-ground activism, and artistic production to illuminate contemporary and historical representations of medical interventions into female/male/transgender reproductive functions and healthcare.

2:00-3:30 pm Feminist Painting
What does it mean to paint “like a woman”—and how might that differ from painting as a feminist? This session brings together four artists of different generations to discuss the political ramifications of applying pigment to surface.

3:45-5:00 pm Push and/or Pull: Trans and Gender-VariantArtistsDiscuss the Role of Feminism in Their Work
In recent years debates have raged over the place that transgender,gender-variant, and genderqueer people occupy in contemporary feminism. This panel will feature three artists who will discuss their work and how they negotiate feminism; ways that feminism is exclusive or inclusive and how they contribute to the evolution of contemporary feminist theory and praxis.

For more details of the TFAP Day of Panels click here.
For more information on TFAP click here.

'Catcher in the Rye' author, J.D. Salinger, dies at 91

Annette Marie Hyder — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:47:00 GMT

Image courtesy of Boston.com

"I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddamn cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody." -- J.D. Salinger

The Associated Press reports:

J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.

Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.

"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight - and concern."

Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing - more than 60 million copies worldwide - and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams - to never grow up.

Read the entire article here.

Links of interest and updates:
J.D. Salinger: a gift of words and silence, By David L. Ulin

What's in J.D. Salinger's safe? Unpublished manuscripts?
Unspoken in Salinger obits: the term 'mentally ill'

Drew Peterson a modern day Bluebeard?

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:49:00 GMT

If it's true that Drew Peterson murdered his fourth wife after she found out that he murdered his third wife, this real life account has shadows of the folktale Bluebeard clinging to it. Bluebeard is a tale in which a husband kills one wife after another when they discover their predecessor's fate as they give in to their feminine curiosity. In the Bluebeard tale feminine curiosity is punished and in the Drew Peterson case it is alleged that the fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, learned the truth about the disappearance of third wife, Kathleen Savio, and for finding out the grisly truth she in turn was murdered.

The fatal effects of feminine curiosity have long been the subject of story and legend. Lot's wife, Pandora, and Psyche are all examples of women whose curiosity exacted dire consequences. In an illustrated account of the Bluebeard story by Walter Crane, when the wife is shown making her way towards the forbidden room, there is behind her a tapestry of the Serpent enticing Eve into eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. -- Wikipedia

The Bluebeard tale, an Aarne-Thompson type 312 folktale, has many variations. Here is a short one from Professor D. L. Ashliman's library of Electronic folk texts:

Blue-Beard
North Carolina, USA

He had a big basket he car'ed on his back. He'd go to people's house an' beg fur something to eat; an' when de pretty girls would come out an' gi' him something to eat, he grabbed 'em in the basket an' run away wi' them. He had a fine large place he car'ed 'em to -- to his kingdom. He gi' 'em de keys. He tol' 'em everything there belonged to them but one room. "Don't go in there." He tol' 'em the day they went in that room,they would be put to death. Married seven times, an' all was sisters.The seven wife one day, when he was gone away, she taken the keys an 'looks in dat room. Finds all her sisters dead in there in a pile. She is so excited, she dropped the keys an' got them bloody. So he comeback an' call for his keys. She kep' them hid from him for several days, didn' want him to see 'em. At las' she brought them out an' give them to him. He tol' her to say a prayer. She prayed seven times. An' her seven brothers came jus' as he went to kill her. An' he ran away into the woods, an' never been seen since.

Read more variations here.

The Peterson case does not have the happy ending that the folktale does but it will have the happy (and eerie) occurrence of one of the alleged victims speaking -- from the grave.

Victim speaks from the grave

The Herald Review reports:

Six years after she mysteriously drowned in a bathtub, Kathleen Savio is finally getting her day in court.

Savio essentially will testify from the grave today, with witnesses expected to tell a judge in Illinois how Savio discussed and wrote about her fears that her husband, former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson,would kill her.

The hearing is expected to provide the first detailed look at evidence prosecutors contend ties Peterson to Savio's death. It stems from a state law that allows a judge to admit hearsay evidence - testimony from witnesses who recount what they heard from others - in first-degree murder cases if prosecutors can prove a defendant killed a witness to prevent him or her from testifying.

The Illinois Legislature passed the law after authorities named Peterson a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy, then exhumed the body of Savio, his third wife, and reopened the investigation into her 2004 death. Though the bill's sponsors were careful never to link the law publicly to Peterson, it has been referred to as "Drew's Law,'' and his attorneys have long suggested it was passed to put Peterson behind bars.

During the hearing,which is expected to last three weeks, prosecutors will present to Will County Judge Stephen White about 60 witnesses to testify about 15hearsay statements. White will then decide if the jury can hear any or all of those statements when Peterson stands trial. Peterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering Savio, whose body was found in a dry tub. A trial date hasn't been set.

While neither side has talked much about the evidence in the case, from the day Peterson was arrested, Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow has made it clear that allowing Savio to tell jurors why Peterson wanted her dead is crucial to his case.

"In essence, what you're basically allowing the victim of a violent crime to do is testify from the grave,''Glasgow, who pushed for passage of the bill, told reporters in May shortly after Peterson was arrested.

Continue reading article here.

Bluebeard by Gustav Doré, public domain

Archetype Enablers
Annette Marie Hyder
From the book The Real Reason the Queen Hated Snow

His beard was ghostlight blue,
blue like veins
seen through too thin skin
and pale, like small albino things
with no eyes to see in the dark.

His beard was ghostlight blue.

Lamentations seeded fear.
And it was said
that each hair grew from sorrow,
Sorrow being the name he christened
every new wife with.
How many wives would that be?
And how many sorrows passed away
to his joy and bristling beard?

Lamentations seeded fear.

How did he win them?
His mouth teemed with terroring teeth
above his cudgel-like chin
and the hands that partnered
his lamprey mouth
were long nailed; bent odd at the wrist.
But that mouth won at wooing
youngest-prettiest-most-dear.
His hands caressed the corpses
to be.

How did he win them?

There is a need in some
of the purest
to immolate themselves
to the strong.
Each Sorrow feared
to let herself fear
for fear that would
make fears come true.
And each Sorrow's footsteps
trailed unerringly
to Bluebeard's awful room.

Some immolate themselves to the strong.

The final Sorrow
was a special sorrow
a sorrow just for him
his best beloved
and tenderly cherished
cozen coddled victim.
She beat the archetype beast
she bested the brute in the test
of curiosity's punishment. And yet

who was the cozened
who was the coddled
who the cherished victim?

Links of interest:
Drew Peterson Wikipedia entry
Bluebeard Wikipedia entry
AT Types of Folktales
Professor D. L. Ashliman
Project Gutenburg: The Seven Wives of Bluebeard by Anatole France
SurLaLune Fairy Tales: The Annotated Bluebeard

What makes me happy about this picture?

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:17:00 GMT

Photo taken at Barnes & Noble, Minnetonka, MN

Three things

Look at how many Rolling Stone magazines there are.
Notice how this issue's cover "model" is not moving the mags here in Minnesota -- at least at the book stores I've been to.
Observe the pristine, untouched appearance of the magazine. No dog ears. No sign of being picked up and leafed through -- no indication of interest at all.

Except by me. And my interest is of a documenting sort. I am happy to have been able to capture these gleefully observed indications of what I'd like to call "Mayer-malaise".

John Mayer's clownish, misogynist comments about women make him eminently worthy of disdain. His posturing (he's been trying to position himself as heart-breaker extraordinaire and Jennifer Aniston life-ruiner) makes him eye-rollingly ridiculous. I bet Jennifer Aniston, in the privacy of her home, is tossing her signature locks in abandoned joyous celebration at being free of the pathetic attention-cubus that is John Mayer.

In the Rolling Stone interview, John Mayer talks about masturbation, trying to find someone he can admire more than he admires himself, and how he can't fathom explaining himself to somebody who can't believe he'd be interested in them (this after he disingenuously talks about girls brushing him off at clubs).

I picture a cartoon of a soulful looking parrot with a guitar over its feathered shoulder and one claw around its feathered man part. The parrot is in a cage. The door to the cage is wide open. The bird is too preoccupied to fly away. It is peering into a round bird-mirror which is clipped to the inside of the cage and the parrot is squawking -- "I want you!" -- to the rapturous image before its love-struck eyes.

Links of interest:

John Mayer's Dirty Mind, Lonely Heart: February issue of Rolling Stone
Jezebel has five theories on the singer's 'interior life...or lack thereof'

Happy Birthday Bubble Wrap!

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:23:00 GMT

Cartoon courtesy of Confessions of a Writer

I love you bubble wrap!

50 years ago today bubble wrap burst onto the pop culture scene. A wallpaper wannabee, bubble wrap went on to be so much more than mere surface decoration. From packing material to artistic muse and enveloping such things as fashion, fun and therapeutic activities in between, bubble wrap went on to become an iconic product. There are over 250 Facebook pages devoted to bubble wrap.

But the best thing about bubble wrap, of course, is popping it!

Being destructive was never so much fun. It's like being allowed to jump on the bed, run down the stairs, yell in the house and track mud on the floor -- all rolled up in the pleasure-packed finger fun of bursting bubbles!

USA Today reports:

Today marks an essential day in pop-culture history: Bubble Wrap's 50th birthday.

Where would we be without these protective, oddly addictive plastic orbs of sealed air? (Actually, we might be in a healthier environment with more recyclable packaging materials, but we'll overlook this fact for the moment.)

The term "Bubble Wrap" was coined in 1960 by engineers Marc Chavannes and Al Fielding who came up with the stuff in Hawthorne, N.J., "with the intent of creating a trendy new textured wallpaper."

Today has been dubbed Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, so pop a few in their honor. And if you'd like to be green about it, just use some virtual Bubble Wrap.

Links of interest:

Free bubble wrap iPhone app
Compulsion, obsession, possession
Heart-shaped bubble wrap

Prince pens fight song for Minnesota Vikings

Annette Marie Hyder — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:35:00 GMT

Purple and gold

What the New York Times called "a fight song by Prince for his hometown team" sounds more like a spiritual to me -- a church hymn. I think it's awful as a fight song for the Minnesota Vikings and I can't see people getting all revved up and rah-rahing when they hear it. I can see this song getting people to shuffle their feet though -- in vicarious embarrassment.

What do you think? Check it out below:

YouTube video

New York Times reports:

Prince, whose hits have included “Little Red Corvette” and “Purple Rain,” is continuing on the color spectrum with a tribute to the Minnesota Vikings called “Purple and Gold.”

The rock star, originally from Minnesota, wrote the tune to cheer on the Vikings, who will play the New Orleans Saints on Sunday in the National Football Conference championship game, with the winner going to the Super Bowl. “Purple and Gold” had its debut this week on the 9 p.m. newscast of the Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis.

Prince said he was inspired to pick up his pen after watching in person as the Vikings beat the Dallas Cowboys, 34-3, last weekend, after not seeing the team play in years until this season. The song (with Prince’s own brand of spelling) says in part: “as we approach the throne we won’t bow down/this time we won’t b denied/raise every voice and let it be known/in the name of the purple and gold/we come in the name of the purple and gold/all of the odds r in r favor/ no prediction 2 bold.” The Vikings wide receiver Bernard Berrian used his Twitter page to thank Prince. “He is definitely one of my favorites,” Mr. Berrian said.

Controversy

Local radio personality, Sheletta Brundidge, has an interesting observation about this song: she thinks it's a rip-off of the Negro National Anthem, aka "Lift Every Voice and Sing..."

Check out her blog post, here, where she invites you to compare Prince's song with the Negro National Anthem, side by side.

(I love the pic of Prince she used for her post.)

January 2010 issue of InTheFray Magazine

Annette Marie Hyder — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:08:00 GMT

Best of InTheFray

A 2009 retrospective.

[ read more ]

identify
interact
imagine
image
blogs
editor's choice

Dear Reader,

InTheFray Magazine's Annual Donor Drive is underway. Our thanks to those who have already contributed. If you haven't donated yet, please consider supporting our nonprofit magazine and its work to further global understanding and tolerance. To make a tax-deductible donation, go to www.inthefray.org/donate,where you'll find a number of options for donating. Thank you for yoursupport! We wish you a happy and wonderful 2010.

—The Editors

Albion, New York

Portrait of a prison town. [ read more ]

From the inner city to Indonesia

Teaching has its rewards, challenges everywhere. [ read more ]

Lean over: there is something I must tell you

Four poems by a contemporary American poet. [ read more ]

One soldier, many stories

Haiti earthquake devastation

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:20:00 GMT

Image courtesy of Mashable

Stunned Haitians piled their dead
on the crumbling streets
Annette Marie Hyder

The earth did not open
an angry mouth
hungrily eating
and there was no betrayal
in the lips of stone
that kissed them to their rest.
Forested fists were not shaken in rage.
It was weariness that caused it.

Haiti's shoulders shuddered.
Her feet faltered in the steps
she's used to taking
and she trembled
because she could no longer carry
in that moment
the weight
of so many souls on her back

beloved millstones
that started out as beads
on a necklace
whose decoration dimmed
as burden burgeoned
and ankle bracelets whose bells
stopped tinkling
and began to weep instead.

Now Haiti weeps too
and we who have not faces of granite
weep with her, tears like gravel
for the way that they cut
and prayers slide like pebbles
into a landslide of mourning.

Huffington Post reports:

A day after the great Haiti earthquake, government officials today estimated the death toll could surpass a seemingly unimaginable 100,000.

Disaster teams, a Navy carrier and a hospital ship are headed to the country.

Stunned Haitians piled their dead on the crumbling streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and President Andre Preval reported stepping over dead bodies.

While specifics on the number of casualties from the earthquake remained unclear, early reports point to heavy and widespread damage in a country that is the poorest in the western hemisphere.

President Obama today said the United States government would offer "swift, coordinated, and aggressive" aid to the estimated three million people caught in the disaster.

The quake struck late Tuesday afternoon, centered just 10 miles from the densely-populated capital.

Read the entire article here.

Would you like to help?

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti has many looking for ways to help.

ABC News has a five page list of easy-just-click-here contact information for such organizations as Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Food for the Hungry, Habitat for Humanity and many more. Link

In a blog post on the U.S. State Department Web site, Clinton's Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills called for those wanting to help to donate $10 by texting "HAITI" to "90999." The $10 donation will go automatically to the Red Cross "to help with relief efforts" and will be charged directly to your cell phone bill.

One of Haiti's most famous sons, musician Wyclef Jean, has used Twitter to rally web users to contribute to his grassroots Yele Haiti earthquake fund. He’s urged his followers to text “Yele” to the number 501501. If you send the text, the organization will receive $5. The amount will be added to your next cell phone bill. You can retweet Wyclef’s updates and get some of your Twitter followers to donate, too.

The U.S. Better Business Bureau runs a site where U.S. donors can verify that a nonprofit is legit before donating. Source

Update 01-20-10: You might want to stick with tried and true Red Cross for donation-by-texting since there have been questions raised about Wyclef Jean's charity, Yele Haiti. It has come under fire with accusations being made that In 2007 the foundation's spending exceeded its revenues by $411,000 with a large percent of its expenses benefiting several of Jean's for-profit businesses. Source

Related links:

Fox News: Fast facts about Haiti earthquake
USA TODAY: How to help victims of the Haiti earthquake
Phoenix Business Journal: Be wary of earthquake relief scams
ABC News coverage
Gawker's updates on Wyclef Jean's charity, Yele Hait

Iguanas falling from the sky

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:06:00 GMT

Image courtesy of Jackie's Page

My mom tells me that the leaves in Florida, which never do, have changed: a blushing profusion of cold bitten flush. And of course the iguanas, which have become proverbial as indices of cold, are falling from the arboreal sky.

(Where she lives, in Hardee county, it got down to 28 degrees Fahrenheit last night!)

Urban legend caught on video

WPLG Local 10 News reports:

Record lows across South Florida are literally freezing the invasive iguana in its tracks.

Kamikaze iguanas, plummeting from their treetop perches, have long been a Floridian urban legend. On Wednesday morning, Local 10 caught the free-falling lizard on tape.

Scientists said these seemingly suicidal lizards are a result of South Florida's record cold weather. Iguanas prefer temperatures in the 80s and 90s. With Wednesday morning's temperatures at around 35 degrees, a handful of lifeless lizards hung from branches and fell to the ground.

While these iguanas appeared dead, experts said they are not. When temperatures drop below 40 degrees, iguanas go into a type of hibernation in which their bodies essentially turn off, only allowing the heart to pump blood. When the temperature rises above 40 degrees again, the iguanas are revived.

"It's almost like they go totally to sleep. Generally speaking, if it warms up afterward, they can recover," said Ron Magill of Miami Metrozoo.

Ron Magill adds this cautionary note:

"I knew of a gentleman who was collecting them off the street and throwing them in the back of his station wagon, and all of a sudden these things are coming alive, crawling on his back and almost caused a wreck."

Read the rest of the article here.
Watch the video here.

you can tell it's cold in florida because
Annette Marie Hyder

this morning the scrub oaks
woke up confused
to find their leaves changed
since they went to bed
the mangroves wont walk
with the cold in their bones
arthritic concerns nod their heads

the palms shiver in silver
that criss-crosses their trunks
their fronds are fast frozen
mid-wave
even the shoreline
wears a sweater of rime
sequined with seashells
that tinkle and clink in surprise
at the frost-rimmed cup of the sun

gulls and cormorants --
feathered teeth of the sky --
click and chatter with cold
but it's the blankets of ice
that the oranges are wearing
that really give it away
that and the way the iguanas are airborne
on their way to kerthunk at your feet

Links of interest:

Its so cold in Florida that...

Many Floridians, in wonderment and delight, took to flickr to share their amazement at, and photographic proof of, the rare beauty of ice in Florida:

Frozen Grass
Freezing Florida winter
ICE!!! It's Florida, Right?
Florida Snowball
Great Horned Owl

Coffee and (Carl Sagan) Apple Pie

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:53:00 GMT

Coffee, good for some, bad for others

I had a friend who was anti-coffee and would sneer at my 'essence of death', as he put it. Well, I have known all along that coffee is good for me. Scientists have waffled back and forth about the benefits and I do what most people do. I listen to the complimentary things researchers say about coffee as well as the negatives and then decide what to do based on how the research results apply to me. In my case (no high blood pressure, not pregnant, non-smoker), rejoice.

Here is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal, Good News in the Daily Grind, that discusses the latest pros and the cons:

To judge by recent headlines, coffee could be the latest health-food craze, right up there with broccoli and whole-wheat bread.

This month alone, an analysis in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that people who drink three to four cups of java a day are 25% less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than those who drink fewer than two cups. And a study presented at an American Association for Cancer Research meeting found that men who drink at least six cups a day have a 60% lower risk of developing advanced prostate cancer than those who didn't drink any.

But don't think you'll be healthier graduating from a tall to a venti just yet. While there has been a splash of positive news about coffee lately, there may still be grounds for concern.

Continue reading here for the rest of the article and to check out the nifty 'cup o' joe' graph that illustrates the pros and cons.

With that in mind

Remember when butter was bad and margarine was touted as the healthy choice? Now, years after I ignored the advice that sullied my ears, to eat margarine instead of butter, I am rewarded for my prescient consumption of the real thing as opposed to the artificial substitute by the acknowledgment by scientists that, why yes, butter is better than margarine.

Harvard Health Publications reports, in Butter vs. Margarine:

Today the butter-versus-margarine issue is really a false one. From the standpoint of heart disease, butter is on the list of foods to use sparingly mostly because it is high in saturated fat, which aggressively increases levels of LDL. Margarines, though, aren’t so easy to classify. The older stick margarines that are still widely sold are high in trans fats, and are worse for you than butter. Some of the newer margarines that are low in saturated fat, high in unsaturated fat, and free of trans fats are fine as long as you don’t use too much (they are still rich in calories).

Read the entire article here.

Now if incontrovertible proof were presented that coffee was bad for one's health, the way that smoking has been proven to undeniably be detrimental to health, well that would be a different story. Until that happens, coffee is my friend.

To go with my coffee, in happy accompaniment, apple pie. Here is, via Neatorama, Carl Sagan's Apple Pie Recipe:

Coffee:

A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses,particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup that is passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful. It is composed of water and the fruit from a bush called bunnu. -- German physician and traveler,Leonhard Rauwolf, in 1583

No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness. -- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir

A morning without coffee is like sleep. -- Author Unknown

The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Fresh milk

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:08:00 GMT

When my mom was growing up they had 'milk of the gods'. It was delivered to their front door in a glass bottle and fresh from the cow with cream on the top and she and her brothers and sisters would argue over whose turn it was to 'get the cream'. 'Getting the cream' meant scooping off the cream into a bowl and eating it in front of the jealous siblings.

Fast forward from her childhood to mine. At one point when I was growing up my widowed mom was having a hard time financially and had to get government food assistance from the US Department of Agriculture: cheese, milk, butter, rice, oats and peanut butter. The butter was really good. The peanut butter, rice and oats were OK. The cheese was a long yellow rectangle that came in a box (kind of the way that Velveeta is packaged). This cheese was not delicious. But it was the government milk that was particularly loathsome. It was made from powdered and dried milk solids with 'just add water' on the package directions.

My mom kept the plastic milk jug from her last store-bought milk when it was empty (she knew she would have to resort to the powdered milk) and she rinsed it out really well and prepared the noxious 'govmilk' in the recycled milk jug to try to trick us kids into thinking it was regular milk. We were not fooled. We refused to drink it. But in refusing it we were not turning our noses up at it because it was government milk. We turned our noses up, justifiably so, because it smelled horrible.

Since the sense of smell is so intricately entwined with the sense of taste, how could we be expected to drink that stuff?

What has me thinking about milk as a beverage in its highest (from my mom's childhood) and lowest (from my childhood) embodiments is what I found at the grocery store the other day.

Yes, right at my local Super Target, the legendary glass-bottled milk is to be found:

"Simply the Best
Delivered direct to your door
Call today!"

At first, in my shock at seeing the 'home delivery' blazoned on these bottles of milk I didn't notice exactly what they were. I was repulsed to see imperfections in the milk--right there proudly on display. And the milk was not the pure white I had imagined from my mother's rhapsodizing. Maybe the milk was just so much better back then? The bottle shape wasn't what I expected either.

Then I looked closer and saw that it was eggnog. Huge relief for the quality factor there! The imperfections were traces of nutmeg and were, in their proper context, lovely. There was no milk actually--just the eggnog. So now, intrigued, and wondering (based on the jaunty promise on the bottle) if I too might experience 'milk of the gods' delivered directly to my door, I looked up info about the Oberweis company.

Here's what I found out:

The delivery charge is $2.99 regardless of how little or how much you order
However, they don't deliver in my area
But, their brand is available at select stores in my area
I simply must taste this milk

It was important to me to see that the milk is antibiotic-free and free of artificial growth hormones--I require that in the milk I buy. So, I'll be getting some Oberweis milk from one of the stores listed in my area and doing a taste test. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Links of interest:
Oberweis.com
Interactions in Flavor
Chocolate Milk better than Gatorade for Post-Exercise Recovery?
Milk bath benefits and recipe

And finally, I remembered that there were always sheets of recipes that came with the USDA food and sure enough, they still have them:
Index Of All Commodity Fact Sheets
And here is a special shout-out to the non-fat dry milk recipes:
USDA's collection of non-fat dry milk recipes

New Year's Day

Annette Marie Hyder — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:44:00 GMT

Image courtesy of inhabitat.com

tanka
Annette Marie Hyder

each new year's a guest
who brings hostess gifts for me
gift wrapped and ribboned

i can't wait to open all
three hundred and sixty-five

Blue Moon Diddle

Annette Marie Hyder — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:26:00 GMT

Image courtesy of zazzle.com

December 31 is not only the end of the year and the end of the decade. It's a night with a second full moon in a calendar month--a "bluemoon."

National Geographic reports:

If the skies are clear, revelers looking up at midnight will get an eyeful of the second full moon of the month—commonly called a blue moon. The last time a blue moon appeared on New Year's Eve was in 1990, and it won't happen again until 2028.

A blue moon isn't actually blue—as commonly defined, the name reflects the relative rarity of twofull moons in a month and is linked to the saying "once in a blue moon."

Most years on average have 12 full moons, with 1 appearing each month.

The term "blue moon" can also refer to the rare instances when the moon actually seems to turn blue, as can happen under certain atmospheric conditions.

Rising in the east at sunset, the New Year's Evefull moon will reach its highest point at midnight, noted JackHorkheimer, director of the Miami Space-Transit Planetarium and host of PBS television's long-running show Star Gazer.

"Full moons around winter solstice rise their highest for the entire year,"Horkheimer added. "Even if you are downtown in a large city, if it is clear at the stroke of midnight the moon will be very visible if you look up."

In any location, the high, silvery orb will seem like a floodlight cast on the landscape, added Horkheimer, who is organizing a national moon-howling contest around this year's blue moon.

"This is especially true where the ground is covered with a blanket of snow.There is nothing quite so spectacular as a snow-covered scene under a December full moon at midnight." Source

Happy New Year's Eve! And here is a Blue Moon Diddle -- a riff off of the English nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle.

Hey diddle diddle, the moon is blue
After Hey Diddle Diddle, English Nursery Rhyme
Annette Marie Hyder

Tell all the trees
let the rocks know too
the rivers shall be notified
about the moon's blue hue.

The sky saved up all year
for this special surprise
so that this new year's eve
would have an indigo moonrise.

Blue as a robin's egg or
blue as in rare
we're in on the wink
from the moon up there.

When the cat sees that
he throws down his fiddle
he pulls out his iPod
and listens to Biddle.

The cow is amazed
that her graceful leap
sent her over the moon
she blushes at her own hoofed feet.

The little dog laughs to see such sport
and begins to chase his tail
when he catches it, he bites it
and then begins to wail.

The spoon is in a fine romance
the dish is his object of woo
her porcelain just sparkles
at the romance and the view

of the moon decked out in party best
and champagne starlight going to her head.
That pretty happiness is two parts why
the two ran off and straightaway wed.

Lacy things

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Image courtesy Tatting for Beginners

Sometimes the whitest snow falls from the bluest sky as the sun sinks slowly carrying its shoulder-load of lit firewood and casting a glow both pink and orange over the cold fields. Night is coming and the moon will dance in the empty ballroom of the sky which will be lit by a myriad celestial candles as she twirls all alone and as the night deepens she will dance and dance, becoming fainter and more ethereal -- until she resembles the snowflakes that mirror her from below.

moss diamond snow
on a cold patterned night
Annette Marie Hyder

a delicate tatting of snow
covers the fields below
and a triple-cast black dye surrounds
the lace doily moon in the sky

Links:
Knitting Stitch Patterns: Moss Diamond
Knitting on the net
Shuttle Tatting instructions

What's open on Christmas day?

Annette Marie Hyder — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Pauline Baynes Illustration for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis

What's open here in Minnesota on Christmas day?

Sno-ho-ho! Despite the snowstorm, that some have been calling "snowmageddon", the roads are open. Caution is advised though, as driving conditions are always dangerous when a snow emergency has been declared.

Links:
Star Tribune snowstorm report
Snow emergencies declared

Starbucks, depending upon your location
IHOP and Waffle House are both open
Walgreens is open 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Movie theaters are open
Many restaurants, including Chinese restaurants are open

Link:
Restaurants open on Christmas Day in Minnesota

Bars and clubs: O' Gara's Garage, Minnesota Music Club, and Bunker's, to name a few.

Additional links for more info:

For a list that includes ice-skating, Como Park and Como Zoo, skiing, snowbarding and snowtubing, check out this link:
Things to do in Minneapolis on Christmas day (and St. Paul too)
World News Buzz has a handy list
NPR, What's open on Christmas Day?

Happy Holidays!

Annette Marie Hyder — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:40:00 GMT

Santa visit photo
Annette Marie Hyder

For the holidays and the new year:
May you be as quietly joyful as Terry, on the left
as comfortably situated as Tommy, on the right

and as self-knowing in what will and will not work for you

as Netty, in the middle.