Politics Plus

It is Christmas Eve and I am having Christmas dinner tonight with friends.  Tomorrow I will be seeing my mother so it is a relaxed Christmas for me.  Tomorrow, the furbabes and I will have a chicken dinner before I leave.

Merry Christmas all!!!

Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:09 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

Huffington Post — Amid a spike in anti-Muslim assaults, vandalism and death threats around the country since the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino and growing sentiment against the resettlement of Muslim refugees, congregations of all faiths have scrambled to think of ways to curb the violence and call for peace.

In Washington, D.C., on Sunday, the Washington National Cathedral played host to an interfaith pilgrimage of Christians, Jews and Muslims who walked with each other from congregation to congregation, calling for the faithful choose "unity over extremism."  …

Along the way, they held signs quoting the Quran on unity and condemning extremism.

"O humankind, indeed we have created you male and female and made you peoples and tribes, that you may know each other," said one (Quran 49:13). "American Muslims condemn ISIS and terrorism," read another.  …

“Embedded in all three Abrahamic faiths is the understanding that we are all pilgrims," added the Rev. Gina Gilland Campbell, the canon precentor at the National Cathedral. "A pilgrimage is a spiritual activity, done in community. It’s a journey toward something, and this pilgrimage brings us closer to God, and to each other.”

What so many people do not understand, or choose not to understand, is that Judaism, Christianity and Islam have a common point of intersection . . . Abraham or Ibrahim in Arabic.  In Islam, Jesus is known as a minor prophet.  In Judaism, Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah is not reconised.  We all have more in common than we know, including our humanity.  And that humanity includes Atheists, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus etc.

Mother Jones — In the early 1900s, Lewis Hine left his job as a schoolteacher to work as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, investigating and documenting child labor in the United States. As a sociologist, Hine was an early believer in the power of photography to document work conditions and help bring about change. He traveled the country, going to fields, factories, and mines—sometimes working undercover—to take pictures of kids as young as four years old being put to work.

Shorpy Higginbotham was a greaser at Bessie Mine in Alabama, working for the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company. Hine said the boy told him that he was 14 years old, but Hine suspected the boy wasn't telling the truth. At work, Shorpy carried two heavy pails of grease and was often in danger of being run over by the coal cars.

Partly as a result of Hine's work (as well as that of Mary Harris Jones, whoMother Jones is named after), Congress passed the Keating-Owens Child Labor Act in 1916. It established child labor standards, including a a minimum age (14 years old for factories, and 16 years old for mines) and an eight-hour workday. It also barred kids under the age of 16 from working overnight. However, the Keating-Owens Act was later ruled unconstitutional, and lasting reform to federal child labor laws didn't come until the New Deal.

Things have changed in the US when it comes to child labour laws.  But in other countries, child labour is still accepted, partly because families need the income.  In some areas, children are treated as slaves.  Click through this pictorial essay.

Think Progress — Last week, a cafeteria worker at an Idaho middle school was fired for giving a free lunch to a hungry 12-year-old student. On Wednesday, after significant backlash against the school, she was offered her job back.

The Idaho State Journal reported on Wednesday night that the worker, Darlene Bowden, would “have to think about” whether to re-accept the position.

A petition on Care2, Don't Fire a Kind Lunch Lady: Children Shouldn't Go Hungry!, keeps beating its target.  The newest target is 90,000 signatures with 88,472 actual signature.  I can appreciate the need to think about returning, but I hope the lunch lady does.  People are watching this Republican school board.

My Universe —

… no wrapping required!

"I ain't no Rudolph!"

The eyes are good today and no longer subject to the drops used in the eye exam, so I am good for another year!  It has rained most of the day, and it is particularly hard right now . . . I can hear it on the roof.  I sure hope Santa has swim trunks because he is likely to need them!  My post may be very brief tomorrow as I have Christmas dinner with friends and I am incharge of the roast yams in honey.

Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:02 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

Huffington Post — When government officials came to collect children from Jean Marie River for residential school, residents of the remote village in the Northwest Territories said they'd keep their kids at home, thanks very much. 

In what may have been unique among Canadian First Nations, they decided to build their own school. And now, as Canadians grapple with the legacy of residential schools, Jean Marie River is trying to commemorate the fact it doesn't have to.  …

Shingle Point Residential School & Home For Boys, Mackenzie District, N.W.T. in 1930

The Alert Bay Mission School in British Columbia in 1885

The school only taught the first six grades, but that was enough to ground kids before they went to Fort Simpson.

"It gave us a good, solid base as compared to people that went to residential schools that didn't have a nurturing mother, that didn't have a model of how to become a caring mother," Gladys Norwegian said.

"I think it helped me to become comfortable with who I am. I didn't really need to explain to anybody what being an aboriginal person means. I was comfortable in my skin."

For the people of Jean Marie River, saying no to the residential school system made for a stronger community, confident and proud.  I will make no apologies for strongly disliking former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative harlots.  Only with a new government lead by Justin Trudeau has there been a commitment to Canadian Aboriginal peoples, a commitment to work in partnership and respect.  Here is Trudeau's commitment, a renewal of the relationship between the government and Aboriginal peoples.  

Politico — But there is a far bigger problem with Cruz: Donald Trump is not the most self-absorbed Republican running for president—Cruz is. Whether you like Trump or not (and I don’t), at least Trump makes no effort to hide his narcissism. In that sense, Trump is oddly genuine.

Cruz, on the other hand, takes great pains to be whatever he thinks you want him to be. And the troubling thing is he’s really good at it.

I sure am glad that this Republican is all yours!  And if this conservative's view is not completely convincing of Cruz's narcissism, have a look at a Cruz campaign rally that turned into a prayer revival.

Global News — An Idaho lunch lady has been fired after she gave a hungry student a free meal.

Dalene Bowden, a former server at Irving Middle School in Pocatello, Idaho, was terminated from her position on Dec. 15 for “theft” when she gave a 12-year-old student free lunch because the young girl couldn’t afford the meal.

“I handed her the food and said ‘here we’ll take care of it in a minute,’” told Bowden to KPVI News.

How Republican of the school district and the supervisor.

Politico — As Iran prepares to announce it has dismantled its nuclear program and thus should have its sanctions lifted on what will be known as “Implementation Day,” probably in January, sniping is growing on all sides. Opponents of the nuclear deal in Congress are urging President Barack Obama not to go easy on Iran for its recent ballistic missile tests and other non-nuclear activities just to try to save the agreement. Iranian officials, meanwhile, are pointing to recent changes in U.S. visa laws as a potential violation of the deal, saying the new rules will damage Iran's economy by penalizing legitimate business travelers and innocent Iranian dual nationals.

If Implementation Day comes and goes without a problem, it will bolster Obama's theory that diplomacy is worth trying even with a longstanding U.S. nemesis. If it is delayed significantly or scuttled completely, it will damage a major piece of the president's foreign policy legacy.  …

As part of the nuclear deal, the U.S. committed to refrain from policies that are “specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.” But Iranian officials view the new visa laws as damaging to their economy because they could scare off investors. Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif has called the new restrictions "absurd." Some European officials also have warned that the changes could violate the nuclear deal.  …

But Iranian leaders haven't been mollified. Some suggested Monday that lobbying by Israel — a staunch foe of Iran and the nuclear deal — prompted the new visa rules. Many Iranians aren't buying that their country isn't being singled out, asking why Congress targeted Iran but not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan in a law ostensibly aimed at stopping terrorism.

It would seem that the Republican dominated Congress is just itching to go to war with Iran.  Personally, I think Iran has a point about the US targetting Iran.  The halls of power are too often filled with political intrigue to which we are never made privy.

My Universe —

“I like to refer to it as aging gracefully, but whatever.”

"Did you just fart?"

“You’re getting sleepy. Very sleepy….”

Well I had a full eye exam today, an annual event since I am diabetic.  The good news . . . my baby blues are in excellent shape!  The bad news . . . my eyes are tired and the light is bothering them, likely just a result of all the drops.  Tomorrow will be fine.  We had what I call thick rain today . . . snow mixed with rain and cold.

Puzzle — Today’s took me 2:43 (average 5:11). To do it, click here. How did you do?

GoodNewsNetwork — If you ever wonder whether you can make a difference in someone’s life, look at this 1988 picture from Children’s Nurse magazine.

The nurse on the left is Lynn Bartos, who spent years helping treat the little girl, Nichole Frye, who had been born with a serious birth defect.

The little girl called the nurse “Sweet Lynnie” and the nurse called little Nichole, “Ninni.”

After almost 25 years, the two met again by chance, and Lynn learned just how much she did make a difference in her patients’ lives, when the roles were reversed.

This time, she was the patient–in a hospital being treated for rheumatoid arthritis, when a young nurse came in to adjust her medicine.

Lynn felt something familiar about her and read the name on her name tag.

“Ninni?” she asked.

Sure enough, little Nichole, now 30, had followed in the footsteps of “Sweet Lynnie,” the nurse who inspired her as a little girl and nursed her through years of surgery and treatment.

Too often, we never get to know how we influence others.  In my 20s, 30s and 40s, I was a Sunday School teacher and a youth group leader for junior and senior highs.  The kids were somewhat rebellious with their parents, but things were different with me.  There was always 2 way respect.  But then my work sent me far north and those days of youth work were done.  About 10 years later I got a call asking me to a wedding.  One of my "babies" was getting married.  Then, about 2 years after that, I received a call from this young man.  I thought he would tell me that they were pregnant.  He said his older brother was getting married and would I come?  Of course I would be there.  And then he said that they were pregnant.  This little girl was named after her 2 grandmothers and me.  Too rarely do we know how we influence others and it is a great privilege when such is revealed.

My Universe —