Pumpkinvine People, I Heart You.
June 21, 2009 by Julia King · 3 Comments
Obama’s Town Hall Meeting
February 9, 2009 by Julia King · 1 Comment
I wasn’t there in person this time when President Obama came to town, but I was talking to a friend on her cell phone as she watched Air Force One land at the South Bend Regional Airport… AND I did get to watch on TV while a couple of my neighbors shook his hand. So, like millions of others, I heard the president’s words from the comfort of my living room instead of from the bleachers in the Concord High School gymnasium.
In short, Obama delivered. He used the office of the presidency to highlight our community as an example of a place that especially needs help, but also as an example of a place that needs to be willing to see this hardship as an opportunity. He reminded us all what this stimulus package is really about. It’s about moving forward with a new, greener and more socially equitable economy. He stressed the fact that when something is already in disrepair (like our local and national economy), that’s the best time to make important shifts, to rebuild better and smarter.
The roughly 22 percent of Americans who stood by George W. Bush until the end showed us that no matter what, some people will stand their ground. Let them stand. The rest of us better get moving…
Obama Puts Elkhart County in Economic Spotlight
February 8, 2009 by Julia King · 9 Comments
When President Barack Obama comes to Elkhart tomorrow (Monday, Feb. 9), he will presumably hear not only from the many average citizens who stood in line for hours to get tickets, but also from 3rd District Rep. (Republican) Mark Souder (my representative) and 2nd District Rep. (Democrat) Joe Donnelly (the neighboring district’s representative). The two northern Indiana lawmakers have joined forces to protect the flailing (failing) recreational vehicle industry, long a staple of the local economy.
As representatives of a hurting community, Donnelly and Souder are doing something right. They are trying to help their ailing constituents. So, too, is Obama – who recognized Elkhart County as a place that truly needs some tender loving care (also known as “jobs”).
I don’t yet know what Obama plans to say, but I hope it’s different from what Souder and Donnelly are saying. Our northern Indiana guys are looking to boost demand for RVs by requesting that Troubled Assets Relief Program (or TARP) funds be available for loans for RVs (these are funds that were initially established for the housing crisis).
Am I a spoilsport if I say I’m less-than-inspired? Getting people to buy recreational vehicles with stimulus money seems about as creative and forward-thinking as investing in home coal chutes. Maybe there’s more to the plan, but if there is, the details aren’t easy to come by.
Once upon a time a recreational vehicle was a brilliant idea (For real. It was.). But that was before we knew about global warming and before we sampled life with gas prices approaching $5 a gallon. Even if an RV niche can survive, it will have to be much (MUCH) smaller, meaning it cannot be expected to anchor our local economy.
Now, it would be different if Donnelly and Souder were pushing for a complete overhaul of the industry, looking to run RVs on vegetable oil, or hydrogen, or outfit every new RV with solar panels or portable windmills (Okay, I don’t know what I’m talking about here. I’m just throwing ideas out; you get the general picture.). But they aren’t. They’re thinking small when it’s time to think big.
The point is that the stimulus money should be used for the future good of our community – and the country as a whole. As sad and frustrating and scary as it is, not every industry will make it to the other side of this economic crisis. And not every industry should.
Northern Indiana desperately needs jobs, jobs that support families and send kids to college — and jobs that tread lightly on our water and our air and our land. The RV industry is not necessarily that industry. It might be, with massive adjustments. But it might not be.
So, when Obama is here, I hope he listens carefully. I hope he hears all the voices and all the possibilities that exist here. And most important, I hope he brings with him fresh ideas for our hurting home. We want to work. We want to grow. But to do that we need an economy that will survive for the long haul, not one that will limp along temporarily before finally tripping over itself and landing on its face.
“Oh, you SHOULDN’T have!” Sen. Lieberman’s Unearned Gift.
November 19, 2008 by Julia King · 2 Comments
Sen. Joe Lieberman, Independent and outspoken champion of the Iraq war, will retain his powerful chairmanship position on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Apparently Lieberman has the consummate unifier, President Elect Barack Obama, to thank for this gem of a gift.
Next time, Mr. President Elect Obama (I still love writing that), when you’re trying to make nice with political foes — may I suggest a fruit basket?
Obviously, within the halls of Congress gifting positions of power is seen as a way to smooth over the bumps, but down here with the little people it feels different – maybe a bit too much like being the monkey in a game of monkey in the middle. Try as I might, I just CANNOT reach that ball when the guys tossing it are so far over my head.
Throughout Obama’s campaign he talked about disagreeing without being disagreeable. That notion was (is) popular with the American electorate in part because after five years of war, many of us are just too tired to fight anymore. Civility is the perfect antidote to suicide bombs and death and soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder. Obama’s campaign was pitch-perfect for the times, just like his personality.
But from where I sit, there is nothing disagreeable about removing Lieberman from the Homeland Security Chairmanship, considering that he’s a man who represents a failed and unpopular approach to national security. The people have spoken. We don’t hate Lieberman; we disagree with him. We worked hard to elect Obama because we don’t want people like Lieberman (or John McCain) steering the agenda.
A fruit basket. Yes, that’s what Lieberman deserves.
Grandmother Births Granddaughters after Eating Wild Mushrooms (or Receiving Fertility Treatments)
November 15, 2008 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
Imagine a world in which a woman gives birth to her own triplet granddaughters. I know. Run-of-the-mill already. Wake me up when a man gives birth to his triplet grandparents. That’s a real story.
Oh, the complexity.
What drives a family to such … I don’t know… exertion? What makes three presumably sane people grab nature and twist it into intractable knots?
15 years ago my body birthed one child and mysteriously halted production. I have a beautiful spitfire of a daughter who loves egg sandwiches and hiking in the woods and has an unnatural aversion to the sound of harmonicas. There was a time when I ached to have another just like her; but looking into her gold-specked eyes I know I’d have to be greedy to require more than one miracle.
All of us together in the child-production-and-rearing years, my sisters wanted me to “do” something, to take up arms in the War for Babies. Because in America we’re always supposed to be “doing” something about everything… weight loss, face-lift, lawn replacement, breast enlargement.
“Just do something little,” they said (so loaning me their uteruses never actually came up). But I didn’t know what “little” meant. There was a line somewhere that I knew I shouldn’t cross but it was so fuzzy it was almost impossible to see. And on the way to that line were a million stops, a million places to rationalize away convictions.
A strong proponent of population control, my social worker sister bent her rules regarding fertility medicine because she loves me. But I was unwilling to bend mine.
There are still moments in the dark-blue hours past midnight when I think far into my daughter’s future, the one where I no longer exist, and wonder if I should have tried harder, longer – not for me, but for her.
But in the light of day things are clearer: Life offers few guarantees, and there is even something to be gained (wisdom to name it) from deprivation or loss. I know, too, that even under the best circumstances fertility is fleeting; every woman must eventually bid it farewell. My time just came sooner than most.
