Am I Crazy?

During our visit to Kansas City, we drove out to Jamesport, MO. After a delicious lunch in a Mennonite restaurant, we visited an Amish store and community nearby. Pictured above is a laundry basket, which I purchased from the store. It cost $50. Yes, $50 for a laundry basket, thus the title of the post. I am a pushover for beautiful handcrafted objects, and I have a special affinity for baskets. I have baskets upon baskets, pine-needle baskets, palmetto baskets, and Native-American baskets of various materials.

The basket is pictured above, and it's lovely, in my humble opinion. The handles are made of leather. Leather handles on a clothes basket! The picture below shows the solid wood bottom of the basket.


Pictured below is the straw hat that Grandpère bought for a much less money. He would not model it for me to take a picture, so I did the best I could with no model. He'd look like a proper Amish gentleman in his hat, except that I'd have to photoshop his shorts and tee-shirt into a long-sleeved shirt and long pants with suspenders and add a beard. With just those few changes, to all appearances, he's Amish.


Click on the pictures to see the fine work close up.

Then, we stopped at an Amish farm to buy fresh-picked corn, which we cooked as soon as we arrived back at the house. It was out-of-this-world delicious!

UPDATE: My middle picture seems to have disappeared, and I cannot upload it again. I will try later. I suspect Blogger. OCICBW.

UPDATE 2: Yay! I was able to upload my picture again.

The Good Samaritan - Mitchell And Webb

Laughing with tears rolling from my eyes at this one.

Thanks to Ann.

Calling Counterlight!

Dear MoveOn member,
....

Barack Obama's historic candidacy has sparked an unprecedented artistic outpouring. Now, in partnership with Shepard Fairey and his Obey Giant collective, we're offering a new way for artists—anyone with a pen and paper qualifies—to share their talents and help elect Barack Obama at the same time.

It's called Manifest Hope, and it's a new Obama art contest for 2D and 3D art, from painting to photography to sculpture. The winners will be shown at the Manifest Hope Gallery online and in Denver during the Democratic convention alongside works from dozens of established and influential artists.

If you think you might want to enter, or want updates on the contest, please let us know here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mh/signup/?id=13385-6955748-P9AQxMx&t=3
If not, can you pass this on to friends of yours who might be interested?

Anyone can enter. You don't have to be Picasso, you just need to be inspired by Barack Obama and willing to donate your creativity and time to the cause.

But you need to get started soon. The final submissions deadline is August 18th at 11:59 a.m. ET. That's not much time to conceive and create a piece of art, so get started today.

All submissions will be judged by a distinguished panel of judges—artists from Obey Giant, contemporary art curators, and multi-talented musicians. Finalists will be asked to auction off their pieces, and donate the proceeds to progressive organizations.

Denver will be buzzing during the convention, but this gallery is going to be one of the coolest places to visit there. Plus, the gallery's going to have an amazing party with live performances by Death Cab For Cutie, Moby, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

We're not going to send any more emails to the full MoveOn list before the submission deadline. So if there's any chance you might be interested, you have to sign up for contest updates now:

http://pol.moveon.org/mh/signup/?id=13385-6955748-P9AQxMx&t=4
Thanks for all you do.

–Peter, Karin, Laura, Ilyse and the rest of the team

P.S. It's okay to enter a piece of art you've already created, as long as you're willing to offer it up for auction if it becomes a finalist. If you're ready to enter right now, you can upload your entry here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mh/enter/?id=13385-6955748-P9AQxMx&t=5

Counterlight, calling Counterlight! Please answer your page, Counterlight!

Am I a terrible old cynic for finding this amusing? Perhaps I'm jealous because I have no talent for art.

I will certainly vote for Obama. This is part of MoveOn's mighty effort to drum up excitement about the presidential race and get out the vote. It's vital that folks go out to vote and get others to vote, so that we don't make our third terrible mistake in a national election and end up with John McWorse as our president.

By all means, if any of you out there have talent and want to submit artwork, use these links. Even though I find the email amusing, I'm publishing this as a public service for those of you who do not get MoveOn's emails.

Note: The hyperlinks went bad, so I removed them and pasted in the web addresses.

Authorized Version Of The Big Adventure

TheMeThatIsMe, who blogs at Conscientisation, gives us the authorized version of the 400 mile road trip adventure with MadPriest to St. Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow, Scotland, where Bishop Gene presided and preached at the Eucharist yesterday. And a grand day it was. Get the other side of the story.

Along with excluding Bishop Gene from the Lambeth gatherings, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams forbid him to preside at the Eucharist during his stay in England. It seems the Scottish Episcopal Church had no such qualms.

On a side note, those of us in the Episcopal Church in the US have reason to be grateful to the Scottish Church, because bishops in Scotland consecrated the first bishop for the Episcopal Church, the US-born Samuel Seabury.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Rest In Peace

He was a brave man, and he did not give up, even when it seemed there was no hope.

Bishop Charles Jenkins Of Louisiana From Lambeth

The Bishop's Blog

Lambeth - Friday - Aug. 1st
Dear Friends,

The last several meetings of this Lambeth Conference shall soon be over. The anxiety here is greater than I expected. No matter the outcome, I wish to express my gratitude to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders here for providing us with this opportunity.

The format of the Conference has been much discussed and disrespected. It seems to me to reflect the work of the Holy Spirit in the miracle of Pentecost. This is to say that all have been given a chance to be heard and understood. Voices from the “edges” of the English speaking world have been heard. In the Indaba to which I am assigned, these voices have been from the Church in India, the Sudanese Church, and the south American Church. I have been taken again to the very roots of my Christian belief by the words and actions of the Church in Japan, the Church in the Indian Ocean and the Church in Burma. These voices which might not enter the fray of debate have proved powerful. This reflects the work of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. No matter the outcome, this process has been the right thing.

I do not share in the anxiety so easily touched around here. I am optimistic that the mission of God shall continue in and through the Anglican Communion. In the final analysis, this is God’s Church and we have not been brought so far to be abandoned now.

Pray for us and rejoice.

+Charles

Had Bishop Gene Robinson's voice been heard, I'd be more kindly disposed to the Lambeth process. I meant to post Bishop Jenkins words without commentary, but I simply could not stay silent, because I believe Bishop Gene's exclusion was so very wrong. I continue to pray for the bishops.

Not Good News

Our friend Doxy is attending the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. She has an excellent post at her blog about what she has learned there so far.

Black U.S. AIDS rates rival some African nations....

Do you know why this is? It has to do with high poverty rates (which tend to limit access to medical care) and the inferior education that tends to go along with poverty. It has to do with ignorance and prejudice.

Mostly it has to do with stigma and discrimination.

People die from stigma. People won't even get tested for HIV because they are afraid that merely taking the test indicates something negative about the person taking it.

Seriously.

I once heard a prominent African American local government official in my hometown say he gave blood twice a year to get tested--that way no one would think he'd been doing anything "nasty" (i.e., having sex with men or shooting up).

The whole post is well worth reading. It's shameful to learn of what we could be doing in this country, but are not doing, to prevent the spread of HIV.

MadPriest's and TheMe's Big Adventure

If you have not already, you may want head over to OCICBW to read about their wonderful 400 mile adventure. Get the full story over there. I won't say more, except that the adventure has to do with Bishop Gene.

Once A Pun A Time

"THE ABILITY TO MAKE AND UNDERSTAND PUNS IS THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT" - Anonymous

Here are the 10 first place winners in the International Pun Contest:

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall The one turns to the other and says "Dam!"

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."


5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?", they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, " I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain ; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and ,with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a "super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis".

10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Like them and laugh, or blame Susan S. Yes, I already know that my title is a very bad pun, so you don't need to tell me.

Winning Bid - $60,000

Following up on my earlier post, the eBay auction for the Ten Commandments tablets from the movie with Charlton Heston is now closed. Lapin and I thought you'd like to know.