Current Events Archives - Page 12 of 26

Untangling My Occupy Wall Street Thoughts

by jphilo | Oct 21, 2011 | Current Events

With more and more air time devoted to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it’s hard to ignore the issue. On this morning’s walk, the movement intruded on my thoughts several times. Pretty soon, I was so het up I couldn’t think straight. So I thought about my thinking (also known as meta-cognition, for those of you who are easily impressed by big words) in an effort to untangle them. Once the untangling was complete, only four thoughts remained.

Thought #1
Don’t these Occupy Wall Street people have anything better to do with their time? Why aren’t they doing something productive? Why aren’t they trying to find jobs?

Thought #2
I wonder how long some of the Occupy Wall Street people have been out of work? How long have they been searching for jobs? How many times have they tried and failed to get work? How would I feel in their situations? Hopeless? Like a victim?

Thought #3
Lord, become their hope. Bring your children to walk beside them rather than to condemn them. Show them Christ, the source of true hope to the poor, the weak, and the dispossessed.

Thought #4
Lord, I am so ashamed of my first thought. How can I judge and condemn others when you don’t condemn me? Forgive my judgmental thoughts and attitudes. From now on, make my third thought my first thought. Grant me compassionate toward the poor, the weak, and the dispossessed. Show me how to be Christ to them.

Hopeful Enough to Drive By

by jphilo | Sep 15, 2011 | Current Events

Scuttlebutt around town is this. The workplace that was my home away from home for eighteen years, the school where my second family worked for nine months of every year, has been demolished. We all knew Bryant School’s demolition was going to happen. In fact, before the building closed in May of 2010, I went back to say good-bye, took pictures, even blogged about it.

I’ve been avoiding that part of town, ever since the building went down.
One thought of the empty block where Bryant School stood,
one mind picture of the ground leveled and grass growing over the foundation,
and I start crying.
Silly, I know.
But having a significant piece of the past erased (and a piece of my kid’s pasts, too, since they went to school there) is harder than I expected.

But this week, some breaking local news made me willing to confront the present instead of mourning the past. On the first attempt, our town passed a bond issue for a new high school. Pretty amazing since the community has a thirty year history of repeatedly voting down school bond issues, eventually settling on compromise solutions that are than second best.

But not this week.

The bond issue passed with 79% voting in favor of it. When the news came, I thought of something my son said when he was in high school. “Mom, why would I ever choose to live in this town as an adult when the people don’t care enough about kids to build decent schools?” I had no answer, only sadness for the message the voting public repeatedly sent to young people in our town. Today, on the other hand, I am proud of my town for passing this bond issue in the midst of economic hard times.

The bond issue news has me feeling hopeful again.
Hopeful enough to face the ghost of Bryant School.
Hopeful enough to dream about our children’s futures.
Hopeful enough, I think, to visit the place where my home away from home once was.
Hopeful enough to laugh through the tears when I drive on by.

The High Trestle Trail

by jphilo | Sep 12, 2011 | Current Events

Hiram was gone last weekend, enjoying the annual guys-riding-motorcycles-on-winding-roads weekend with my sister’s husband. Therefore, I started my annual I-can-do-whatever-I-want-since-there’s-no-one-around weekend with a walk on the recently completed High Trestle Trail not to far from where we live.

The twenty-five mile trail runs along an abandoned Union-Pacific railroad line. Every inch of the scenery along the 3 miles I explored was lush and lovely. The crowning jewel was the half-mile long, High Trestle Bridge across the Des Moines River. The Des Moines River valley is loaded with spectacular views, so I was expecting the beautiful view.

But I wasn’t expecting the old railroad bridge turned walking/biking trail to be a work of art. Yet with lovely twin pillars at each and a canopy created with iron girders turned every which way, the bridge was at the breathtaking center of panoramic scenery.

The beauty was so distracting I forgot to be scared of heights, and that’s saying something for someone who thinks the third rung of a ladder is too far off the ground for comfort. Sure, halfway across the bridge I had the fleeting thought, “This would not be a good time for the New Madrid earthquake fault to act up,” but then the circular pattern of the girders distracted me, and I went back to thinking “pretty” and “shiny.”

My only regret is that Hiram wasn’t there so we could see it for the first time together. Then again, maybe we can trek across this Iowa treasure together when the leaves start turning in a few weeks. In the meantime, perhaps I can pick up a seismometer cheap on eBay and start monitoring Iowa’s earthquake activity. Then again, I could throw caution to the wind and live dangerously.

That sounds a lot easier than the operating manuel for a seismometer, don’t you think?

I Am Such a Whiner

by jphilo | Aug 10, 2011 | Current Events

Okay, maybe I’m not a whiner in this picture. But photo search with the key phrase “Jolene whining” didn’t unearth anything. Not because I’m not a whiner. More likely because nobody thinks to grab the camera when I launch into a new litany of what’s wrong with my world.

Sunday morning before church would have been a good morning to snap a few classic, whiny shots. My inner whiner was churning out complaints.

Writing skits for Sunday school.
Getting ready to help with Adventure Club at church Sunday night.
You name it.
I was grousing about it.

Still I went to worship, the chip on my shoulder so big, it was to get through the front door. Somehow, I made it inside, and I made sure everybody knew how hard life has been lately. Then I settled down to listen to a group of women, four of them high school teens, from our church tell about their recent mission trip to the Congo.

They showed pictures of happy children dressed in rags. One teen described the best hospital in the area. “See how the floor is wet?” she said when a picture of the children’s ward appeared on the screen. “There’s no bathroom for the children. That’s urine.”

Two women laughed as they described how hard it was to cook a meal over a fire. Tears came to another woman’s eyes as she contrasted the poverty of the people to their joy in worship and willingness to give.

Tears came to my eyes, and to the eyes of those around me, when another woman listed staggering HIV statistics for the Congo. Thousands diagnosed daily. Children orphaned by the hour. The work being done through Global Fingerprints to rescue the orphans.

What do I have to whine about?
Why am I not grateful for what’s been given me?
Why am I not using it and the energy spent complaining to solve real problems?

God, forgive me.

S’wayzee

by jphilo | Jul 28, 2011 | Current Events

Thanks to the four RAGBRAI riders who stayed at our house Tuesday night and sang Happy Birthday to me (per Hiram’s request) on Wednesday morning, my 55th birthday was the hippest jiviest, and g’day-mate-iest ever.

(I know several of you didn’t comprehend a word past “55th” because you’re thinking, “She must be yanking my chain. No way can this woman be 55. She looks so young.” Your astonishment is a welcome surprise, but really, I am 55. And really, you need to track with the RAGBRAI riders story, rather than obsessing about my amazingly youthfulness, so you can become the hippest, jiviest, and g’day-mate-iest person on your block.)

The lesson in hip-ocity began when the last two riders arrived at about 8 in the evening. Now, they were later than the first two women riders not because they were stragglers, but because they rode the 70 miles from Carroll to our fair city, plus the 30 mile loop-of-torture designed for extreme athletes who wanted to add a 100 mile notch to their bicycling belts.

Andrea came to the kitchen first and was assembling her BLT before Matt did. Being both the token male and also the token Australian in the group, maybe he found it helpful to watch the proceedings before eating. Or maybe he was just checking out the cultural landscape. Whatever the reason, he hung back a bit until I said, “This is a self-serve operation. Come on over and get something to eat.”

He picked up a plate and said, “S’wayzee!” (pronounced “swaye-zee” with emphasis on the “swaye”) with the hippest, jiviest, and g’day-mate-iest inflection ever.

Hiram and I looked at the other three riders and parroted Matt. “S’wayzee?”

“Australian for ‘so easy,’” one of them explained.

Another laughed. “We say it all the time now, too.”

“Cool.” Hiram grinned. “S’wayzee!”

We practiced the word several times before going to bed,

S’wayzee,
S’wayzee,
S’wayzee,
working on our own hip, jive, and g’day mate inflection, while hoping our 55-year-old Swiss cheese brains would remember the word in the morning.

Our hard work paid off, and we woke up on my birthday morning with “S’wayzee” tripping off our tongues. We sounded almost as hip, jive, and g’day mate as Matt. But after we waved good-bye to our overnight guests, we almost forgot the word during our morning walk.
Between the two of us we eventually remembered. Then we swaggered home as quickly as we could while maintaining our aura of hip-ocity and jivieness. I hurried to the computer and wrote this blog, preserving our new word for posterity and officially preserving my 55th birthday as the hippest, jiviest and g’day-mate-iest ever.

Being 55 is turning out to be s’wayzee…as long as I write everything down.

Don’t call Me, I’ll Call You

by jphilo | Jul 21, 2011 | Current Events

Ever since we got home from vacation, the phone has been ringing off the hook. Apparently, it rang a lot while we were gone, if the flashing number on the monitor is any indication.

But the phone calls haven’t been from friends saying they missed us.
Or from enemies who called to ask when we’re leaving again.
No, the majority of the phone calls can be categorized into one of two groups:

They are either from solicitous Southwest Airlines customer service reps reporting on the status of our lost luggage.
Or they are calls associated with the 2012 presidential election which our fair state kicks off with the Iowa caucuses.

Since our bags arrived this morning, and the Iowa Caucus isn’t until January, I’ve further divided today’s calls into three irritating categories:

Robo calls from candidates. Don’t ask what the candidates say in these calls, because once it’s clear the call is taped, I hang up. I wouldn’t hang up if the candidate made a personal call, and we shared an equal sacrifice of time. But until that happens, I’ll keep hanging up.
Robo survey calls from various political campaigns. Don’t ask what the survey questions are, because I realize it’s an automated survey, I hang up. Again, it’s an equal sacrifice of time thing.
Survey calls from real people. Once, I agreed to do one of those surveys. But about ten questions in, I opted out. Why? Because the questions were peppered with emotionally loaded words, chosen to skew the results in favor of one party or another, one candidate or another. The survey’s sponsors weren’t interested in obtaining voter opinions. They were only interested in manipulating them. So now, I say no to those surveys, too.

With January more than five months away, the hang-up-to-chat ratio will be as skewed as a political poll. In fact, I may just turn off the ringer until the caucuses are over. So if you’re a friend who wants to welcome me home or an enemy who would like to wave good-bye again, send an email, a tweet, or catch me on Facebook.

I’ll get back to you. I promise.