Wednesday, February 27, 2008

View from the Jewish side

Ever since the New Catholic Encyclopedia came out (in 15 volumes) in 2003, I have used it as a sort of general purpose encyclopedia of religion - looking up articles on Buddhist holidays, the differences between Lutheran synods, etc. Then last year the library got the latest edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica (in 22 volumes!), but I never thought to use it in the same way - until last week. My eyes are opening!

Just out of curiosity, I decided to look up "Church, Catholic" in the Jewish encyclopedia. It was a respectful article, but very painfully factual about centuries of the Church's mistrust, prejudice, hatred, and violence toward Jews. It ends with information about current attempts at apologies and reconciliation, but I was left feeling deep shame. This was a watershed moment in my personal education. I had always had a vague notion that the Catholic Church had not treated Jews well, but never knew the particulars. Once again, I realize how much I have left to learn! A lifetime is never enough for the important things.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Through Deaf Eyes

Last week I watched a really interesting DVD I checked out from my library that was originally a PBS program produced last year by WETA (Washington, DC) and Gallaudet University. Through Deaf Eyes tries to show the history of deaf persons in the U.S. - from weird "cures" for deafness (like being taken in an airplane for looping dives) to deaf parents who don't believe their children's deafness requires any cure.

I was already aware of some of the issues facing deaf people in the last few years, since our intrepid aunt decided to get a cochlear implant to regain some of the hearing she lost decades ago as an unwanted consequence of taking an antibiotic. The implant works! But some deaf people think that deafness, and using only American Sign Language to communicate, are perfectly fine - and not really a handicap. It's a huge conflict between those who want to be fluent in ASL and English (spoken and written) and those who want only ASL (which doesn't always have English equivalents).

Thanks, M.E., for helping us get started in learning more about what this all means! I think we still have a ways to go.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Sold on Yaktrax!

Today I tried out my new Yaktrax Walker snow and ice grippers. Why didn't I get these before?? For the last week, my commute to the train stations has been treacherous - the snow is glazed hard with a layer of ice - some of it melted on the streets and sidewalks into an ice sheet, etc. I had to walk in the streets to avoid the worst parts where people didn't shovel and it added so much to my commute time avoiding street traffic. Amazon is sold out of the black ones, so I ordered from cozywinters.com. They arrived in 5 days and I wore them home from work - what a difference!

These are so cool - you stretch them on over your shoe or boot soles, walk wherever you want (except inside on ceramic tile floors), take them off in a jiffy, stick them in their handy little nylon envelope and stuff them in your jacket pocket. No, I am not getting paid for this, but hats off to the person who invented these! I am a total convert.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

February 17, 2008 - 108 years old!!



Today is the 108th birthday of my mother-in-law, Mary. The picture shows a sample of the four generations she begins: Mary (1), Dan (2), Helen (3), Mia (4). On Thursday, there was a Valentine/birthday party for everyone at her residence, complete with musicians and refreshments. The musicians were prepared to play, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling", etc., and were thrown for a loop when told that she is not Irish, but 100% Slovak! She had a great time and had an increasingly rare, but welcome, good day from morning to night.

Our family party was this afternoon, with all four grandchildren, spouses, and 3 great-grandkiddies, plus a North Dakota cousin, and 2 priests from our parish, where she is the oldest parishioner in their history. She may be the oldest person in Chicago but we don't know how to find out.

Today I was telling her about all the family who were expected for the party, naming everyone, and concluding by saying that her family is growing. She replied, "So are cabbages." Is she a smart-aleck, or what? She is definitely an amazing woman, tested by adversity over many decades and made of very strong stuff. Here's to next year!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Skip this if you don't care about Lincoln


In honor of Lincoln's birthday today, I'm posting the list of selected biographies I mentioned in my last post. I wish I had had a nifty link, but I just couldn't find it on the Web, so had to resort to typing.

Abraham Lincoln: Selected Biographies

Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (3 vols.), c. 1889.
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (Herndon was Lincoln's last law partner in Springfield, IL)

The Life of Abraham Lincoln (2 vols.), c. 1900.
Ida M. Tarbell (her two brothers knew Lincoln)

Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg (2 vols.), 1945.
Lincoln the President: Midstream, c. 1952.
Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure, c. 1955.
James G. Randall

Abraham Lincoln: A Biography, c. 1952.
Benjamin Thomas

With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, c. 1977.
Stephen B. Oates

Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America, c. 1995.
Mark E. Neely, Jr.

Lincoln, c. 1995.
David Herbert Donald

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, c. 1999.
Allen C. Guelzo

Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography, c. 2002.
William E. Gienapp

Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, c. 2004.
Richard Carwardine

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Abraham Lincoln - and Steven Spielberg

As you can see by my current book list on the right, I've been indulging my long interest in Abraham Lincoln. A few years ago, my husband and I took a trip to Springfield, IL, and stayed at a B&B just down the block from the Lincoln family home there. Our room overlooked the street and, in the early morning with no one around, you could look out and pretend that you were seeing the neighborhood as it was in those days - with fences to keep out stray animals around each restored house.

While we were there, we visited the marvelous Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. In a room designed for kid visitors, complete with a wall height chart to show how tall Lincoln was compared to his wife, etc., a curator gave me a list of selected Lincoln biographies (there are hundreds, maybe thousands) arranged in chronological order by publication date. So, the first one was by his law partner, Wm. Herndon, and written within a few decades of his death. I'm reading through the list and am now only on the third one - a lifetime project.

Meanwhile, Spielberg bought the film rights to Team of Rivals, a recent book on Lincoln by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, that tells how he incorporated many of the men who ran against him for president into his Cabinet, then got them to work together. Wouldn't that be interesting with this year's candidates!! Spielberg has cast one of my all-time favorite actors, Liam Neeson, as Lincoln - with rumors that Sally Field will play Mary Lincoln. Film production has been delayed until after the next Indiana Jones movie and may not be out until 2009 (sigh), but I will be first in line to see it!

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Francis Thomas Dwyer, Feb. 5, 1894 - Jan. 3, 1968



This is a photo, c. 1898, of Grandpa Dwyer as a child with his little brother, Edgar, and older sister, Ellen (later Sr. Mary Mark), at their home in Ann Arbor, MI. He is a beautiful child with dark wavy hair and fine features. From the fancy sailor suit he is wearing, it looks like his mother liked to dress him up!

Francis was the second child of John William and Alicia (Hogan) Dwyer. He graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and eventually worked for Northwestern Bell Telephone Company as an accountant in Omaha, NB, and Fargo, ND. He married a lively German-American girl whom he had met in Iowa near his Irish immigrant grandfather's homestead farm. They raised four sons and, at long last, a daughter.

He loved baseball, golf, fishing and hunting, and was a cracker-jack bridge player. He died very suddenly in the middle of a conversation with his wife at their beloved lake home on Lake Sallie near Detroit Lakes, MN.
Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Gardening Thoughts in February

For the last few years, I've heard that gardeners should start planting tomato seeds in February in order to set out some sturdy seedlings by Mother's Day. I've never done it yet and always ended up standing in line over at the local garden shop in May. Let's see if I get my act together and get some on the windowsill this month!

Last summer, Environmentalist Daughter convinced a couple of us to go in with her for a share of weekly summer organic produce from a local farm. The farm had drop-off points all over the city with one conveniently near her, so she would get our box of fruits and veggies on Saturday, divide it up, and the rest of us would get ours later that weekend.

What I liked was trying new items, including some I'd never heard of, like Asian melon. What I didn't like was that some veggies were already limp by the time I got them. Meanwhile, I had already set out my own backyard garden, and was ready for tomatoes, green beans, kale, spinach, beets, peas and radishes. Luckily, you can never have too many tomatoes, so I was still able to use everything. But this year, I'm sticking to the backyard garden.

I'm a child of North Dakota and Minnesota, and grew up thinking everyone ate strawberry-rhubarb sauce for breakfast. Unfortunately, my two rhubarb plants have withered and died, and it takes at least one year of growing uncut to give a plant a good start. So no sauce for us this year.

If anyone else is looking at the seeds in the drugstore now, you might want to read an account by novelist Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Tells how she moved from the Southwest to Appalachia with her husband and two daughters and they decided to eat only food grown or raised within 40 miles or so (locavores?). How they did it, what they had to do without, etc., is mighty interesting.