Category: Just Jot It January

SoCS: What would you do?

People sometimes ask themselves, “What would you do if…?”

We in the United States are now getting the answer to to those hypotheticals when it comes to questions of what we would did if our liberties, rights, and Constitutional protections were threatened.

The answer is “We organize and fight!”

I don’t mean fighting in a physical sense; we are fighting non-violently. We are marching, calling and writing our members of Congress and the president, getting the word out in traditional and social media, and working through established organizations.

One of the heartening things to me is that we are helping each other with various causes, even if we are not directly affected by them.

I have been involved with various organizations for environmental and social justice for years. Most of them would co-ordinate with some other closely related organizations within their areas of interest, such as environmental or health care causes, but not think about other areas, such as racial justice or poverty. Now, everyone is pitching in to help any injustice that appears.

We are all in this together.

It isn’t easy and how effective we will be is unknown, as these are early days.

But we must keep at it to ensure our rights and the fate of our nation.

There is an old story about not speaking out when “they” (meaning the authorities in an authoritarian country) came for the members of this group and that group because the narrator is not a member of those groups. When they come for the narrator, there is no one left to speak up for him.

We are not making that mistake.

And for that I am grateful.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is wood/would. Join us for SoCS and/or Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-and-jusjojan-jan-2817/

 

Solar!

I am pleased to announce that in late December, our household went solar!

Thanks to a change in the New York State laws, community solar projects were finally allowed in 2016 and we jumped in as soon as practicable.

We had had our rooftop evaluated for solar panels previously, but the south side of our house is too shaded. The shade trees help to cut down on air conditioning costs in the summer, so it would have been counterproductive to cut them down in order to put up solar panels. Also, some of the shade is supplied by trees in our neighbors’ yard, so we wouldn’t have been able to cut those down.

We had hoped to be able to join a community solar farm in our county, but Tompkins County was able to get permits and leases in place sooner, so we decided to go with Renovus in Ithaca, which is the home of T’s alma mater, Cornell University. Here is a short video of the final installation process a few weeks before it went online:  

(There is a lot of mud in the video, but it will be seeded in the spring.)

We own twenty panels in the array, which is in Trumansburg. Being a part of a solar farm does have some advantages. The panels are commercial grade, so their production is higher than residential panels. They can be optimally oriented and angled for catching the most sunlight. Also, if we move to a new home in our area, we can continue to use the credits from our panels. Alternatively, we can sell them, either to new owners of our home or to anyone else in our area.

It was nice to have the panels go online before the end of the year, as we will be able to apply for tax credits when we file our taxes.  It’s not optimal for solar production, though, with daylight hours so short. Still, we will get some reduction in our electric bill for the winter and spring. By summer, we will be able to start building up credits in our account to cover for the lower wintertime production next year. Our array is sized to cover our annual household usage, so it will all average out once we get through this initial low-production period.

Until we get an electric car…

Stay tuned.
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Join us for the last few days of Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/27/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-27th17/ 

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reaction to the morning news

No torture. Not ever. Under no circumstance. It is immoral and illegal.

I can’t believe I even have cause to write this.
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There is still time to join in the fun with Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/26/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-26th17/

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One-Liner Wednesday: facts

“Alternative facts” = Lies

This one-liner, which distresses me to have to write about my own country, is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday and Just Jot It January series. Join us! Find out how here:
https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/25/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan-2517-prompt-its-here/

#1linerWeds badge by nearlywes.com

 

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Get Smart(phone)

Hmmm….I seem to be indulging my love of parentheses lately.

Warning: I may move on to ellipses next…

Okay, back to the post…

Over the weekend, we went to our wireless store to shop for T’s first smartphone. Given that she is about to head to Missouri to work at a grasslands field research station, she will need GPS and access to databases and such to help with her fieldwork. She also may need it for internet access from the place where she will be living, which does not have broadband available.

They were having a half-price special on an appropriate phone, which the salesperson referred to as buy-one-get-one-free…

So, the next thing I knew, I was getting my first smartphone, too.

It’s quite a step forward in technology for me, given that I was using a flip-phone that was so old the store didn’t have a connector to copy my contacts onto the smartphone. Fortunately, I didn’t have a ton of contacts, although it was tedious to copy them myself. On the other hand, it was a lot easier to type in the names than to push the number buttons the appropriate amount of times for each letter.

It is handy to have E here, as she has had a smartphone for a while and could help me learn how to use my new phone and how to delete or disable apps that came pre-installed, but that I don’t want to bother with. She also taught me important things, like how to silence the ringer.

This probably sounds funny to people who are used to using smartphones and other devices. I realize they are supposed to be intuitive and easy to figure out, but I am not very good at dealing with symbols and swiping and such. I do better with words and manuals with an index that I can read. Of course, those don’t exist any more…

I also don’t use my cell phone as most people do. My landline is still my primary phone number. Very few people have my cell number. I realize that most people want to be connected at all times, but I don’t want anyone bothering me when I am off doing something else. I don’t want a reminder call on my dentist appointment while I am grocery shopping or visiting my parents.

I also don’t text. That may change with T leaving soon for Missouri. I do use g-chat for messaging, so texting is a natural extension of that.

One thing that will be helpful is downloading the apps for some of the stores that I frequent. Recently, our supermarket decided that it would no longer mail out coupons. Having a smartphone will make it easier to download them to my loyalty card.

Who knows? Maybe I will go wild and start taking photos and streaming videos and texting all the time and playing games and such.

Most likely, not…
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/23/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-24th-elusive/

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Fear (not)

I have been writing for months about how scared I am of DT.

Over the weekend, though, I have been getting lots of messages to not be afraid.

At the Women’s March in Binghamton and from speakers that I saw on video from other locations, the message was repeated over and over. “Don’t be afraid. Grab a clipboard and get signatures to run for office.”

At church on Sunday, we heard in readings and the in the homily to not be afraid. We sang a psalm response, “Of whom should I be afraid?”

I wish I could say that I am suddenly not afraid. I’m at least less afraid, because I feel that there are so many others who are going to be working to limit the damage that DT plans/executes. There is strength in numbers, especially when we are working together for the common good.

I doubt, though, that I will ever be brave enough to run for office. Years ago, when I was doing extensive volunteering in our local school district, numerous people tried to convince me to run for school board. I knew that I had the intellectual skills needed, but did not think I could muster the stamina needed for long, contentious meetings.

That still holds true.

I will just have to show my (developing) fearlessness in other ways.
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/22/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-23rd-compromise/

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Women march around the world!

Yesterday, T and I joined with over 3,000 other women, men, and children in a Women’s March in Binghamton, New York, held in solidarity with the Women’s March in Washington, DC.

An idea to march in defense of women’s rights the day after the inauguration grew into a worldwide phenomenon with sister marches and rallies held around the country and on every continent, including Antarctica!

The marches were peaceful and stood for the rights of women and of all other groups who have been attacked for their religion, race, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, beliefs, education level, or sexual orientation.

The attendance at many of the events exceeded expectations. Our Binghamton March had expected a few hundred people, so to have over 3,000 was a fantastic surprise. The Washington March drew a half a million people, many more than the inauguration had drawn the day before. (In a press briefing that illustrates what we are in for in the DT administration, the press secretary insisted that the press was universally lying about the crowd size and that the inauguration had been the largest ever, which is demonstrably untrue.)

Our march was relatively short, beginning at the Martin Luther King, Jr. statue at the Peacemaker’s Stage along the Chenango River and proceeding a few blocks down Court Street to the lawn of the 1897 Courthouse, where we held our rally. Our permit was for sidewalk march only, but the police helpfully stopped the traffic so we could stream through the crosswalks.

We had a full slate of speakers that included elected officials, representatives of local chapters of organizations such as the NAACP and Citizen Action, health care advocates, and members of diverse faith communities, with poetry and music interspersed among the speeches. There were calls for respect for women’s rights, reproductive rights, religious freedom, access to quality, affordable health care for all, indigenous rights, Equal rights for the LGBTQ community, and more.

The speakers and the crowds around the world made me hopeful, especially after the darkness of the inaugural address.

Our rally also echoed the universal theme to get and stay involved. That is the real source of hope. The marches were not a one-day phenomenon. We are all heading back to our hometowns to continuing to advocate for civil rights.

As the chants say, “Women’s rights are human rights.”

“The people united will never be defeated!”
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There is still time to join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January. Prompts are available, but any post qualifies. Learn more here: https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/22/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-22nd-contempt/

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SoCS: RiverRead

Last night at Open Mic at RiverRead Books, my poet-friend Merrill Oliver Douglas read a new poem that she had written after visiting the Corning Museum of Glass.

I read “Thanks to the Department of Public Art” which also mentions glass. “Broken shards of glass and lives…”

I had especially wanted to read this poem at RiverRead because it is located amidst the public art in Binghamton to which the poem refers.

The very sad thing is that this was the last Open Mic at RiverRead. It will close at the end of the month, going the way of many independent bookstores.

So, we celebrated books and poetry and the bookstore together one last time.

We know we will continue to celebrate books and poetry. Just not in this place. And not in a bookstore, as there isn’t another independent bookstore available in our community.

😦

Note:  If you visit the link above, you can see RiverRead in the background on the left side of the photograph.
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It’s another double dip, Stream of Consciousness Saturday and Just Jot It January! Linda’s prompt this week is “glass”. Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-and-jusjojan-jan-2117/

 

civic duty

Watching the presidential inauguration today is not part of my civic duty.

Paying my taxes is, so this morning I went to the town office to pay our town and county taxes, which will help to provide our community with roads, parks, public safety, libraries, water and sewer systems, and many other things that make our everyday life possible. (Later in the year, we will pay our school taxes, which funds the very important work of educating our young people so they can grow up to be responsible adults.)

This afternoon, I attended an event in conjunction with the national bus tour to “Save Our Health Care” by stopping the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Our hope is to pass additional legislation that will build on and improve the ACA – and which the Congressional Republicans have refused to consider during the Obama presidency.

Millions of people only have insurance today because of the ACA, including some members of my family. Everybody also benefits from provisions of the ACA, such as no exclusions for pre-existing conditions; 100% coverage for wellness exams, mammograms, colonoscopies, birth control, and other benefits; women not being charged extra just because they are women; and no lifetime caps on claims. Seniors get help with closing the “donut” hole in the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Many people think that the rise in insurance premiums has been caused by the ACA, but the truth is that the rate at which insurance premiums were rising was much higher before it was enacted. For most people, the federal subsidies make premiums affordable. Even if the deductible is high, people benefit from lower costs for appointments; doctors and hospitals charge people without insurance much higher prices. Additionally, Medicare has had years of solvency added because of the ACA.

It is scary that the Republicans in Congress are looking at repealing the ACA without simultaneously replacing it. It makes much more sense to improve the ACA than to abolish it.

Mend it. Don’t end it!

Health care is a human right and providing it is one way that we in the United States can “promote the general welfare” as our Constitution states.
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/20/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-20th17/

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March Poem by Abby Murray

I am pleased to share a link to a new poem by Abby Murray, who earned her doctorate at Binghamton University and is a former director of the Binghamton Poetry Project:  http://www.rattle.com/poem-for-my-daughter-before-the-march-by-abby-e-murray/

Abby now teaches in the Seattle, Washington area and plans to participate in the Women’s March there on Saturday. She wrote this poem for and about her young daughter.

Bonus:  If you follow the link, there is an audio of Abby reading the poem, as well as the poem itself and a note about it from Abby.

Congratulations, Abby!

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I already did a Just Jot It January post today, but I’m adding the link and badge here, too, so more people will have the chance to see Abby’s poem:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/19/jusjojan-daily-prompt-jan-19th17/

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