Still sick
So I've got some cranberry rose spice herbal tea in the pot, and my hands wrapped around a steaming mug when I'm not typing. And there are animal crackers, too.
Off and on, I've crocheted on the blanket, and now, it's even big enough to cover my lap as I work on edging more squares. It seems every day I hear from someone else who has finished a square. When my mother-in-law heard about the project, she offered to work one. I have some on their way from Colorado, and one being made in Kentucky.
And I think about the place that this project touches. We have the booklets from the world wars, and the civil war, and so on that tell us "Our Boys Need Socks!" along with a knitting pattern. We have the description at the start of Little Women of four sisters sitting together and talking about the simpler Christmas they will celebrate while their father is at war. We have civil defense pamphets on every subject under the sun. And now, we have a war, a terrible war that has left thousands of American families to mourn, and Iraq in tattered ruins. And still very few Americans have been asked to sacrifice. Buy War Bonds? Nope. Put this war on plastic, thanks all the same. Grow Victory Gardens? Nah, that'd interfere with Archer Daniels Midland's profit margins. If you drive alone, you drive with the Enemy? Nope. Pull your Hummer out of the driveway and drive alone wherever you want. We'll drill more. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? Nope.
So when the opportunity to do something, anything comes along, people have jumped at it. And most of these people have objected strenuously and loudly to the war from the start.
Off and on, I've crocheted on the blanket, and now, it's even big enough to cover my lap as I work on edging more squares. It seems every day I hear from someone else who has finished a square. When my mother-in-law heard about the project, she offered to work one. I have some on their way from Colorado, and one being made in Kentucky.
And I think about the place that this project touches. We have the booklets from the world wars, and the civil war, and so on that tell us "Our Boys Need Socks!" along with a knitting pattern. We have the description at the start of Little Women of four sisters sitting together and talking about the simpler Christmas they will celebrate while their father is at war. We have civil defense pamphets on every subject under the sun. And now, we have a war, a terrible war that has left thousands of American families to mourn, and Iraq in tattered ruins. And still very few Americans have been asked to sacrifice. Buy War Bonds? Nope. Put this war on plastic, thanks all the same. Grow Victory Gardens? Nah, that'd interfere with Archer Daniels Midland's profit margins. If you drive alone, you drive with the Enemy? Nope. Pull your Hummer out of the driveway and drive alone wherever you want. We'll drill more. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? Nope.
So when the opportunity to do something, anything comes along, people have jumped at it. And most of these people have objected strenuously and loudly to the war from the start.
posted by Plain Foolish | 4:57 PM
2 Comments:
There's a family here who has been on the news two nights in a row because they are protesting the fact that their subdivision is no longer flying flags. The flags they had were too tattered and the poles needed TLC so the manager took them down until he could have the work done. Now, these people are throwing a fit because there are no flags.
Heaven forbid they put that energy into doing something meaningful. Maybe raise some money for body armor? Organize a care package committee? Writing letters to congressmen, even. No--better spend that time nit-picking over ornaments.
Sigh.
Well, it's certainly cheaper to whine about a flagpole that you are not personally financially responsible for than to send care packages. The organizations that do send care packages are constantly fundraising because it costs money, not just to get the stuff to send (though there are people willing to donate some of it) but to pay the actual postage.
My last carepackage to Dad ran me about $20 in postage alone. Now that was a really big one, but even the post office fixed rate boxes are over $8 to send. Heck, I'd be happy for them to complain to their representatives, et cetera, that there is no subsidy for military families sending mail to war zones. But that might not get them on the news.
Man, I'm just feeling so cynical about this.
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