Breast Cancer 3-Day Update!

As I mentioned before, my girlfriends and I have signed up for the Seattle Breast Cancer 3 Day benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Our fundraising party with the 80's theme was a big success--we collected lots of money between the cover charge and the raffle and had a ton of fun!



Our training walks are well under way, with each of our team members walking individually and sometimes in groups for ten miles or more at a go. We've got more fundraisers planned for the summer--including a community garage sale and possibly an old fashioned summer time cookout--and we're well on our way.

But we still need some help. In order for each of us to participate in Seattle 3 Day we must each raise a minimum of $2,200.00. That's where you come in: take a second to visit the 3 Day website and make a donation; whatever you can afford, one dollar or one hundred, will go to support our team on its walk.

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I am a walker

Some of you may already have heard: I am crazy. That is, my wonderful girlfriends have talked me in to getting a team together for the Seattle Breast Cancer 3 Day in September.

So here we are: Team TaTas for Tots. A team of women dedicated to raising money for The Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer research. We're training, we're hosting parties, we're going to walk! And we'd appreciate your help.

We know not everyone is crazy enough to walk 60 miles in three days, but we are! So here's your chance to get involved too. You see, we've agreed to raise a minimum of $2,200 each in order to participate in the 3-day walk. Every donation, small or large, will be appreciated, and of course, put to good use. People who sponsor a TaTas for Tots team member for $100 or more will receive a special gift as a way to say thanks.

So, if you've got some spare change in your couch cushions or are looking for a good way to spend that newly received economic stimulus check, head on over to the 3 Day website and make a donation for participant 2058488 in event 1189. Thanks!

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in the news and my inbox

I recently received an email from a very good friend containing an essay purported to be written by Jay Leno. My favorite thing to do, when I receive email forwards of this kind, is to head over to Snopes and find out whether or not it's bunk. Despite my overwhelming feeling that the essay was a load of crap (as was the idea that it was penned by Jay Leno) I decided to let it slide. Perhaps out of love for and deference to my friend. I don't know.

This morning, I was visiting another of my favorite web locales, Obscure Store, when I came across this article. I clicked through, as I am wont to do, and read. And then I cried. I can't recall when a news article has ever made me cry. And then I started to think.

I was forwarding the article on to my girlfriends when I remembered the email I had received containing the "Jay Leno essay" and it made me angry. Not because of my subsequent discovery that the diatribe, in fact, had not been written by Jay Leno. No, it was because the author, for it is a real essay, had the audacity to tell the American people to shut the hell up and quit complaining. Combined with the article from this morning it was just too much.

So I got up on my soapbox for a quick minute. An act I will now repeat (with an excerpt from my email to the gals).

I'm not trying to be a big downer for you all today, but I read this article this morning and it made me cry--news articles rarely do that to me.

It made me think about a lot of things. About the war and the real cost, a cost that we've become desensitized to. Just because young men and women volunteer to serve in our armed forces doesn't mean that when they die in battle their loss is any less tragic or that we don't have an obligation to question whether it was preventable.

I thought about the importance of participating in our upcoming election. And about how, sometimes, the most important thing you can do as a citizen is voice your dissatisfaction and never be complacent with the status quo, even when the status quo seems pretty comfortable.

We may have a lot of advantages here in the U.S. and for those things, I am sure, most Americans are genuinely grateful. I know I am. But having all of these advantages does not mean we don't have a right to complain and to protest when our government--a government of the people, by the people, for the people--does not heed the voice of its people. If anything, our advantages ensure our obligation to do just that because our government is nothing without its people. Our advantages become shackles when they're used to placate or silence our dissent.

Another Obscure Store reader put it thusly:

I am patriotic, almost insanely so; my family have been warfighters for our country since its inception. Our government was designed to promote free speech and thought, and to be by the will of the people. But our government has made that difficult, maybe even impossible. Blind faith is for religion, not for government. I want people to stand up to our government, I want people to protest, I don't want "yes men" in the government. Burn my beloved flag if you must. Protest is what keeps a government honest (at least as much as that may be possible) or at least on its toes.

And now, once again, I step down from my soapbox.

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marching, marching

It's been a very busy March in the Anderson household. We've both been working hard. My husband finished his National Board Professional Teaching Certification Portfolio and the regular debate season. Between my classes, my internship, and my job, I've been too busy to do much of anything else. And yet, we still found some time (where we found it I have no idea) to celebrate Easter and six, count 'em, six family birthdays. Including the birth of the newest member of our family.

On Monday March 17th 2008 at 2:42 p.m. Emelia Midori Pendergraft made her early debut.




Sunday the 16th was my hubby's birthday and Tuesday the 18th is shared by my younger sis Melody, my father in-law Gary, and my younger sis in-law Caroline. What a week.

On Saturday the 22nd we attended the baby shower for Emelia--who made sure she could attend her own bash by coming two weeks early.





After which, my family went out to Red Robin for a drink in celebration of my younger sister finally hitting the big 21.





And on Sunday the 23rd we headed north to Redmond to celebrate Easter and multiple birthdays with Jim's family.

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suggestion box

One of my very few readers has politely requested that I blog more about what I'm learning in school. This is a great idea, one which I will try to implement. No promises, though. I am taking 18 credits this quarter (and doing 20 credits worth of work--more on that later). And, as if I didn't have enough to do, I just started working for a local purveyor of legal highs.

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biodiversity at the beach

This past week my program took a field trip out to Washington's Long Beach Peninsula to do town studies in the area. On Wednesday we had a little free time to do whatever we wanted. I headed up to Leadbetter Point State Park at the Northern most tip of the peninsula with a few of my class mates for some beach walking.




At the trail head we ran into this sign:




Along the trail that leads to the beach we were treated to a glorious display of fungus, the likes of which I have never seen. Thankfully, I had thought to bring my camera.











After a 2 mile walk we finally arrived out of the forest and grasslands on to the beach.



Snowy Plovers use much of the beach area, even this late in the year, and are the reason that the beach is closed to dogs and vehicles.





During our walk we came across a lot of garbage that had washed up on shore from passing ships.



We also found this milk crate which we used to collect the garbage. We took it as a sign to do our Greener best to leave the beach better than we found it.

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In response to S. Renee Mitchell

I may be joining this discussion a little late but...

I have read and re-read both the original article and the subsequent blog post and comments and I have a few things that I'd like to point out, Ms. Mitchell.

I too can look at the drawing on the Starbuck's board and acknowledge that it has the potential to be offensive to some and not to others. I also recognize that we are far from completely obliterating racism and bigotry in our country. However, despite the claim you make in your article that your purpose is "confronting insensitivity to stop it," there are several times when your own insensitivity is grossly displayed.

First, your quest to identify the artist appears to exclude the possibility that the artist may, in fact, have been an African American. Though you don't say it outright, your scavenger hunt to eradicate this display of insensitivity seems to be founded on the premise that the artist is white. I can only assume that you reached this conclusion because the artwork in question appeared in a Starbucks. What does this say about your own prejudices?

You acknowledge in your article "that public art is interpreted through the cultural lens of the beholder" and never once stop to consider that perhaps your lens might be set to hyper-sensitive.

You again wantonly wield your own insensitivity in your description of "Starbucks' front-line staffers -- who assemble specialty lattes as if they're creating a culinary art form." This statement reveals your prejudice that Starbuck's employees are nothing more than assembly line workers with pretensions. Furthermore, it never enters into your mind that anyone with this type of job could possibly take pride in their work, their product, or their company.

However, these are minor offenses when compared with the way in which you chose to handle this matter from the outset. You don't reveal, until the very end of your article, the identity of the person who gave you the picture in the first place. I can only assume this was to lend to the sense of mystery, the feeling of being on a scavenger hunt. Instead it seems more like a witch-hunt when one realizes that all you really needed to do was ask your source to identify which Starbuck's had the artwork. At that point you could have called or gone into that store alone to speak to the manager about the potential for offense and the necessity of sensitivity. Instead you proceeded to march yourself into every Starbuck's location in the immediate vicinity. I'm not sure what this accomplished aside from increasing your ire over the piece of work, as well as deliberately and erroneously implying to your readers that there was some big mystery to be solved.

You have completely overblown this situation. As a journalist you have a responsibility to carry out your investigations, even those that concern racism and bigotry, with the utmost of integrity. You say in your article that "evidence of our insensitivity to each other's context is inevitable. But we have a choice: We can confront the offense with anger or we can experience these awkward encounters as teachable moments." If your goal truly was to "confront insensitivity to stop it," you failed miserably. You stomped off on a crusade without first doing any of the research that is normally associated with quality journalism and then, despite the fact that the offending artwork had been removed and the manager apologetically explained that no offense had been intended, you still proceeded to write a highly inflammatory article regarding your personal crusade. In sum, you let your indignation and anger cloud your judgment and lost any opportunity for a "teachable moment".

No, your goal was not merely to confront and stop insensitivity. It seems much more likely that your goal was to publicly denounce an entire company and it's workers as insensitive without first stopping to consider your own insensitivity.

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