by Julia Ward Howe, 1870

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

11 more days, 11 more days, 11 more days, 11 more days...

I have created white hot chocolate!

Inspiration struck after reading a friend mention the substance. (She got hers from starbucks, but just hearing the idea inspired me to try it myself, in my own home even ^_~)
I bought white chocolate chips at the store, and set upon an experiment to see if I could make white hot chocolate (white chocolate is my favorite form of chocolate. I know, heresy, but this is me, and I'm a heretic I guess.)

I combined one part white chocolate chips and 3 parts milk in a mug (specifically, 1/3 cup chips and 1 cup milk) then microwaved it very very carefully, for about 2 minutes. This is important, when microwaving milk I have learned you need to take it slow and break up the overall time into 10-30 second bursts, or the milk will boil too quickly and overflow the container. At each break, stir. I assume it will work the same way on the stove, just with constant stirring instead of microwave-stir combinations.
After about 2 minutes worth of microwaving, the milk was hot, the chocolate melted, and it's white hot chocolate!
A minor venture into the world of cooking I admit, but I'm proud of myself just for trying ^^ And since it was from scratch without even a recipe, I think I'm justified in calling it real cookery ^^;

Never fear change, be afraid of the unchanging.

Speak truth to the people, and the people will speak truth to power.

"You cannot live on hope alone, but without it life is not worth living. You, and you, and you, you've got to give them hope. You've got to give them hope." -Harvey Milk

One joy dispels a hundred cares.

I saw geese walk on water today.

The surface of the lagoon by the art museum that I walk past every day to get to my car has frozen over, so the flock of geese that have taken up resident there were out on the lagoon... just standing. On the water. It wasn't a white ice sheet either, just a thin layer so it still looked like the lagoon. If I couldn't see the ripples vaguely frozen I wouldn't have known it was frozen and just been puzzled at how the geese were standing there. It looked very cool. And I watched one goose sort of skate-stepping on the ice, his/her feet sliding a bit with each step. Then another one landed, just as if landing in the liquid lagoon, but he/she just slid, flapping, until the forward momentum wore out. Yeah. It was very cool and amused me to no end. Turns out I really like geese. Who would've thought?

One problem I have with winter here is that in the cold air outside I can sometimes taste the car exhaust. Makes walking less pleasant. I don't remember ever experiencing that in Alaska... Also people don't like to shovel the sidewalks at all. Rather annoying trying to walk anywhere that way. Not that sidewalks were frequently shoveled in AK, but I had boots that went halfway up my shins then, I don't anymore.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
-Langston Hughes