Mom On the Alert

HOPE LEVEL HIGH

I have had lots of time on my hands these days due to back and knee issues, which have severely limited my activities. So, instead of getting up and about doing all the stuff I normally do, most of the time I sit propped up on the sofa surfing the internet.

The time has not been spent completely frivolously though. I am actually learning a thing or two about what is going on in the world, and within the good old USA.

This morning, after ingesting my second cup of coffee, and when I finally came truly awake, I could hear that Pete was listening to something of note upstairs on his computer. So instead of reading the newspaper, I turned on my wonderful little MacBook and linked to C-SPAN-3.

There was something important going on! The Senate Judiciary Committee was meeting to question our Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, regarding the firing of eight Federal Justices for what appears to be purely political reasons.

It is truly amazing how little Attorney General Gonzales recalled about how the dismissals came about. Gonzales did not seem to remember who did what ... or who decided what ... at the time. Now, I for one, do not believe that Mr. Gonzales is actually having memory problems ... but that, of course, is possible.

Toward the end of the hearing it seemed that one after another, nearly every member of the Judiciary Committee asked Mister Gonzales to step down … since he was either incompetent, or worse.

One thing that seemed to trouble one of the Senators was the fact that the Justice Department spent considerable time investigating voter fraud cases. The time spent investigating these cases was not about the large number of reported incidents where eligible voters were turned away from the polls or discouraged from voting altogether. The investigations were primarily about the possibility that some people voted, who were not, in fact, eligible to vote.

Insuring voting rights in a democracy is of immense importance. And this is rightly in the province of the Justice Department, which should be free of political aspirations. Of course people aren't perfect and neither is our court system ... but being apolitical in administering justice should always be the goal.

The fact that this issue, and many others, are now coming to light is certainly encouraging. My hope for America righting our wrongs is increasing. There is much to do on this and other fronts, but maybe, just maybe, we will succeed!

Right now, our Senator, Barbara Boxer is addressing Global Warming. Onward ... Onward.

More From Maya

The Path

What if "our path" was less about where our "journey" was
taking us, and more about the actual ground we were
already walking on? What if "the path" were a city street,
a backwoods trail, a bedroom carpet, an asphalt driveway
leading us to our own front door. Maybe one day the path is
a set of well-positioned, proportional flagstones, and the next
it's an incoherent, discombobulated mess of pebbles, tossed
pennies, dead leaves and trash. Maybe the path is the distance
between our car and the mailbox. Or a grocery aisle on a
weekend afternoon. Or the inches we lean into to give our love
a kiss goodnight. Maybe "our path" is exactly where we are, right now, not where we think we "need" to be.

-Maya Stein

Isn't It Time?

If you have ever visited our capitol, you may have noticed that many of the cars registered in Washington DC have the words TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION emblazoned on their Car License Plates.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in Washington DC on April 16, 1862. More than a century later many of our citizens still do not have representation in Congress.

People living in DC pay the second highest per capita federal income taxes in the country, serve in our military, and are good citizens ... but have no vote on how the federal government spends their money.

DC has no representation at all in the Senate at all ... And, just a non voting advisory representative in Congress.

Join me in helping to extend full voting rights to our fellow citizens who live in DC by contacting your representatives in Congress today and urge them to vote for equality!

Please do your part! You can help to give more than 500,000 American Citizens a real vote in Congress here.

Let 2007 be the year we correct this injustice. Let us all celebrate DC Emancipation Day this year by insuring true Representation for our Capitol's citizens.

It really is time!

Girls Day

So Zoe and I are watching Gwen Stefani videos on my MacBook. YooHoo

I had the sound up as high as I could make it, but we were having difficulty hearing the song over the sound the Nitendo Cookin Mama game that Mira was playing on the TV.

So ... Zoe reaches over and presses a wee little button at the top the keyboard that I'd never noticed before. Suddenly the sound was much amplified. Who knew that there was a little key speaker and the letters FS that makes the sound even bigger? And one to the left that turned it down?

Pretty soon, Mira joined us and we are all singing along and moving to the beat.

Zoe tells me that her favorite Gwen Stephanie song is Just A Girl. After a short search on YouTube we found it.

I asked Zoe if she knew when that song was recorded. She said; "It was long time ago, Nana. I think in the Nineteens. I was little then."

Yes folks, Gwen recorded this song a long time ago in the last century ... in the 19 somethings. Everything is relative.

By the way....

Zoe also showed me how set up a playlist on YouTube that will automatically play one song after another. What will this eleven year old teach me tomorrow?

if ever

if ever
- Maya Stein

and if ever there was a time to pause
and stand, broken, before God,
weep at the sight of all that is beautiful
and finite, our hands having cast their breadcrumbs,
the birds scattering toward home,
time impossible in its never enoughness,
if ever there was a time to pause
and to ache in the falling light
signaling our last, glorious view of the world,
let it be now.

SOS ... CALLING ALL SENATORS AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS