It's That Time Again

It's Christmas. We're surrounded by Christmas music, Nativity scenes, Salvation Army kettles, plastic ice decorations, and relentless Christmas cheer -- all of which is supposed to be non sectarian. Right.

This has been an awful few months. My mother died just before Thanksgiving (which was not awful; at 96 1/2 years, she'd lived a full life, and had a peaceful and calm death -- the sort of death we all hope to have -- but it was still wrenching), we learned that Ann's brother Carlo is suffering from liver cancer with a not-positive prognosis, and that a good friend (and Ohio State alumna) is in the final stages of lung cancer. So it's not been a great time. Plus, an external review of my workplace done this fall identifies me as one three people who are an impediment to any approval in our area, and that nothing will change until we retire, or leave, or . . . Well, that was a cheerful holiday present!

And on top of all that, problems at the Coop, which take up an enormous amount of time. They will, I believe, eventually be resolved. But it drags on and on, ... and on. Although why, if I'm an impediment to any change at Ohio State, am I spending all these hours on Coop business? Surely an impediment one place will still be an impediment at another place 1 1/2 miles distant? And, if so, shouldn't the impediment simply resign, so that progress can continue unchecked?

Oh, well. the holiday season is here. The controversy in Olympia, Washington, about what the city government should or should not display (Christian, Jewish, Muslim signs, but no atheist), resulted in this sign being posted>



and posted it was. And torn down. And reposted. Sigh. When will they ever learn? when will they ever learn??

Another Holiday Desecrated by Christians

Well, the holiday is here again, and, again, fundamentalist Christians are doing their damndest to turn a seasonal holiday into a religious one. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is even airing a commercial urging us all to remember that the we need to simply 'celebrate Christ's birth' and settle in with our families. Guess the non-Christians don't count in the Huckster's vision of the United States. It was pretty clear before this commercial that that was the case, but he's made it solid as he pitches, presumably sincerely, his message to the fundamentalist Christian voting base; if you managed to miss this cringing ad, catch it at http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/12/17/huckabees-christmas-card-to-the-voters/
Dennis Kucinich looks better and better all the time!



Meanwhile, we celebrate the traditional holiday, the solstice, with visits to good friends, various parties, and with family. Here are a couple of photos of Ginger, my 95 1/2 year old mother, recently, as we visited with her in her assisted living quarters here in Columbus--it's a relief to have her five minutes away, rather than the eight hours drive it was to visit her in northern Virginia--what a good idea it was to arrange to have her move here three years ago! Now we can visit several times a week, and, just as importantly, monitor her health care and medications.


Ginger Woods


Ginger with Ann


Ginger with middle son

Very busy with the Limbo play project, which has mushroomed into a major task, coming on top of the Heckart plays; will be awash with readings for the next few months! Details on both at two sites: http://limboplays.blogspot.com and http://heckartdrama.blogspot.com