Dulce Mia

Ouch. I needed surgery. All I got was Tylenol.

2010-09-09T18:08:00.000-07:00

As an attorney, I understand initiative. My best opponents, including those who are fun to negotiate with, always plead aggressively. While they may ultimately be willing to compromise, those who take the initiative, sometimes well before I have even been retained, see to it that I work to win it back. Republicans use it and so should Democrats. The rationale for health care reform, as it was passed, makes perfect sense from a fairness point of view, but not from an initiative-posturing-for-strategic-measures perspective. While single payer health care was, and still is, the only way to fix the problems in our system, public option health care may have felt more fair to all the interests. The same goes for my president's judicial appointments. They have been slow, yes, but thoughtful and fair. As November, with its threat of resurgence, is fast approaching, the slow appointments and moderate health care reform have created just as much vulnerability as progress. Initiative is becoming even more crucial. Appointing in larger numbers, including even marginalized candidates, could have made Republicans work harder and possibly protected the moderates Dems wanted anyway. As for health care reform, an initiative strategy might have been to push single payer, make our opponents destroy it, then attack them for doing so. If that sounds destructive to the billions of Americans who were getting screened out for health insurance, an argument can be made that they are no better off, as long as health care maintains a financing system based on private insurance. This is what Nick Skala meant by "public option is like a doctor prescribing Tylenol, when what you really need is surgery." His point was that the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as the public, needs to hear a side by side comparison of public option and single payer health care. I know I need to hear the comparisons. In the distracted, only moderately informed, "I'm so busy" reality I inhabit, my understanding of all subjects is invariably truncated. I'm so hyper focussed on the things I need and want and already have, but need to replace, I'm high. High like some citizen of an Opium Regime occupied third world country, as far as my firm understanding of things like health care reform go. The corporations that provide it all to me, have me so addicted, I don't complain. And when I do complain, I still want my opium.

We can be roused from a narcotic state by anger initiative, because anger is hard wired. Anger initiative is harder for Democrats. It invariably gets monopolized by Republican rhetoric. Republicans, who get more mileage out of glittering generalities than Democrats, know how to work serious anger up to initiative. Democrats should utilize more anger framing, to assist with initiative. Unleashed Rahm Emanuel anger. It's hard to get worked up about things, if you're not angry. It's hard to be too upset with Tylenol, even when you need surgery, if your daddy, or your privatized-corporate-controlled-disabled government keeps you flush with the good stuff.

Here's an excellent 1 hour or less detox from beltway politics, which can lead to health care reform enlightenment (and anger) :

Watch Nick Skala's June 12, 2009 interview. "The Single Payer Action Interview"

Read Nick Skala's testimony to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for Physicians for a National Health Program.

Visit Single Payer Action's site.

Read "Health Care Reform For Beginners" by Ezra Klein, in the Washington Post.

Watch Single Payer Action interview with Stan Brock.

“Hey, pretty girl, time to wake up.” Mulholland Drive

2010-03-22T03:25:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning so …. Awake!

The American dream is opium-like. When I’m dreaming the American dream, I’m out. It’s intense. I am heady. I am thinking about my daughter’s shoes, my son’s birthday, my Spanish water doggie’s tricks, my clothes, my vacations, my furniture, my car and my tunes. God, I really love my tunes. I’m also thinking about social justice, abuse victims, my responsibilities, my commitments, my politics, my work, my morals and my principals while I’m dreaming the dream. These are lucid American dreams.

But today, Health Care Reform passed, and I'm awake. Climbing out of my coma-like limited comprehension of health care reform began many months ago and ended last night almost simultaneously with the vote. I recommend the following for a good strong happy HCR buzz.

See the video readily available on Paul Hipp's site home page. We're number 37 is short and witty. Hipp's parodies are clever. He draws inspiration from Johnny Cash and the Beatles. He can write some songs about politics, true dat.

Listen to Keith Olbermann's special comment on death panels. He’s pissed about his father’s illness, and you can identify with Olbermann on this issue. His delivery is poignant.

Read about health care reform as proposed by my president. It’s his proposal, and it is not unwise to read his explanation of his proposal. Don’t expect to feel yourself coming out of the dream state yet. We live with so many distractions and deep seated perceptions, we don’t rise above them into clairvoyance without some effort.

And see the film Sicko by Michael Moore. Straight up, I have to say I like his work. But I identify with those who hesitate. He can be hard to watch. He's like Quentin Tarantino that way. Always worth it. What's so excellent about Sicko, is that you don't even have to cover your eyes, like you do in some of Moore's (and Tarantino's) films, if you're a little sensitive. Sicko, you get to watch con los ojos abiertos.

Lastly, listen to Je t’aime moi non plus back to back with Street Fighting Man, or anything else off the Sicko soundtrack, and tell me you don’t feel like you've just had a double espresso!

Gimme them greenbacks. I'm gonna buy back the fatback.

2009-08-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

Fatback is the cut of pork that runs along the back, right? It's the fat. It's supposed to be the flavorful part of the pork. For Joe Luter, it's part of the pork that needs to go, as we are a nation that likes to purchase low fat products. In his Plea to the Poles, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. describes how Luter began the genetic engineering of our supermarket pork in order to produce a leaner pig. Turns out these pigs are high strung and nervous, a little like my dog. No. A lot like my dog, because piggies, I've learned, are as sentient as doggies. European pigs, raised on traditional old world farms I guess, are fatter and taste better than their genetically engineered homogenous American counterparts. Luter talks about this subject some in his interview with National Hog Farmer. He's referencing the economic value for him in genetically engineered pigs that all look alike when they get processed and placed in the super markets. There's no picking over to find the best cut if all the cuts look identical; as a result, all the packages get purchased. That's the value for Luter. But there ain't no value in it for us. The pigs don't taste so good when the flavorful fat is genetically engineered out. Even the injections to simulate the flavor of fat don't help. When we stop purchasing pork from Smithfield and its countless subsidiaries, the industry is swiftly and decidedly affected. Since Luter's corporation dominates the industry, the only way to be certain you aren't paying him when you purchase is, I think, to buy from small, local organic pig farmers. Get a flavorful and healthy cut and support a farming practice that lets pigs act like pigs. No warehousing, no freakish industrializing, and no need for all the icky medications. Want to see the fatback? Use your greenbacks.

How this wildly distracted beauty addicted yoga loving poverty lawyer soccer mom figured out the pork industry (even a blind pig finds an acorn)

2009-08-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

When my aunt asked me if I'd read any good books lately, I wondered... Hmmm. Nope. No books. None at all. Not in months. But for some reading at night to the kids, I haven't touched a book. Nor have I watched countless episodes of any particular series on DVD as I am prone to do. No The Wire, no Nip/Tuck, no Lost, no The Office. Nothing. Nor have I written anything outside of work. No blogging. No contact with many of my friends, now that I think of it. Everything has been briefly suspended. Curious?

In a nutshell, it is because it has required all of my mental energy and focus to reach a low level understanding of the pig industry in today's socio-economic framework. I basically decided to figure out one teensy part of the way our country works...and it took me roughly 3 months.

I flew out of Massachusetts right on the cusp of the swine flu epidemic scare. One of my closest friends was diagnosed with the virus, and I began to imagine my own symptoms at around the same time. I'd spent a weekend with Al Giordano at a journalism workshop, and as a result, I made new friends from Mexico City. There was an immediacy and personal relevance to the issue that provided just enough incentive to understand the virus. Also, I had read Jeff Tietz' Rolling Stone article, Boss Hog, several months before, and I already disliked Joe Luter. I remember thinking: if people die falling in these holding ponds filled with pig waste because they're so toxic, and now more are dying from an airborne virus linked to a Smithfield factory farm, why aren't we all pissed at Luter? I started reading publications, not books, (though I had recently begun The Wrecking Crew by Thomas Frank which examines the cynical conservative corporate connection) and researching the issues like a student.

What I found freaked me out, and I temporarily lost the ability to articulate. As I began to get my head around the vastness of the misconduct on behalf of Smithfield Foods, I couldn't share findings or facts because I didn't know where to begin. There was too much information. The contrast in the abundance of information and the absence of a cohesive presentation of information by the media was so perplexing, that I couldn't figure out how to approach it. Additionally, by the time I could distill the issues and organize the information, it was too late. The issue was behind the news cycle and no longer in the national dialog. This is an important characteristic of a consumer driven society.

I have now reached pig nirvana. I understand fully what industrialized farming is all about. I know how the pigs are raised, I know what's in the pigs, I know why they're genetically engineered, I know what Smithfield's environmental, labor, and political negotiation practices are, I know Joe Luter's relationship to Smithfield and its countless subsidiaries, I know how rich he is, I know he's retired now, I understand total vertical integration, I know how the contracts with his company and small farmers are drafted, I see NAFTA's role in the equation, and I even know why our collective understanding of this issue is fairly scrambled as it relates to our media as a commodity and how a collective understanding impacts the economy. So I don't buy pork from stores or restaurants anymore unless I know it came from a small, independent, (preferably local) pig farmer. Now, that's what I call bacon.

Want to obtain pig nirvana too? The list of links below will take you there.

Jeff Tietz: Rolling Stone - Pork's Dirty Secret - Boss Hog

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: These American Pigs - Comments - Kennedy's Plea to the Poles

National Hog Farmer: Straight Talk From Smithfield's Joe Luter in 2000

David Kirby: The Huffington Post - "Patient Zero" identified in Mexican Swine Flu Outbreak?

David Kirby: Swine Flu Outbreak - Nature Biting Back at Industrialized Animal Production?

Al Giordano: Narco News - How "The NAFTA Flu" Exploded

Annie Leonard: The Story of Stuff

Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Smithfield Foods: Murphy - Brown, LLC - Our Company, Our Family

Smoke This

2009-03-16T04:48:00.000-07:00

If you read Al Giordano's March 12 post on The President and the Drug War in the Narco News Bulletin, you know that journalists in the world of participatory journalism are discussing drug policy in the new administration. If you're looking to gain speed on the issues, Giordano is where you start as he's been covering the War on Drugs from here and Latin America for roughly 10 years. His interview in the Boston Phoenix is richly informative. Watch this youtube vid of Allison Margolin, L.A.'s dopest attorney. She's out there in the midst of the drug war too. Issue still in your system? Then see what Nate Silver determines from polls on issues regarding Americans and our thoughts on legalization. Stephen Colbert's hope bong satire is high grade humor. More on drugs? HBO's series The Wire is cronic. I like how it goes for cop and suspect perspective. My instinct used to be to blame a cop or a soldier. Then I met a bunch of them and began to understand that culpability is often way way up at the top. With the ruling class for example. Everyone else is usually just trying to put food on the table.

Grass Roots Think Tank

2009-02-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

Facts are essential for refutation, and refutation is the best course for debate. Debate is powerful when used to navigate any narrative directed by the Republican Noise Machine. While republicans send their spin down the talk radio pipelines and the spin gets planted in the narrative when it appears on network channels as news, democrats can address this narrative not just in dialogue but also debate. There are think tanks at work right now driving the GOP attack narrative while simultaneously brainstorming for definition and direction. It was a grass roots movement that brought about our most impressive moment in history. Collectively, we are a grass roots think tank. Building a broad fact basis takes time. I think a good place to start is with the following list. As an exercise in fact building, why not challenge ourselves to know everything we can on each person on this list. As a result, we will undoubtedly be ready to begin mastering refutation.

people to know well - a primer for refutation

Barack Obama

Michelle Obama

Robert Gates

Thomas Daschle

Hillary Clinton

Shaun Donovan

Nancy Pelosi

Tom Vilsak

Judd Gregg

Arne Duncan

Stephen Chu

Ken Salazar

Eric Holder Jr.

Timothy Geithner

Ray Lahood

Eric Shinseki

James Carville

Susan Rice

Ray LaHood

Hilda Solis

Janet Napolitano

David Axelrod

Pete Rouse

Rahm Emanuel

Valerie Jarrett

Caroline Kennedy

Ted Kennedy

Dennis Kucinich

Al Giordano

John Roberts

Samuel Alito

Stephen Breyer

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Anthony Kennedy

Antonin Scalia

David Hackett Souter

John Paul Stevens

Clarence Thomas

Understanding the Auto Bailout

2008-12-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

To understand the Auto Bailout start first at the far right, then read from the middle, then read from the left. The mainstream media hugely influences our collective consciousness, and we feel fairly informed while the rest of the world tries to understand our apparent complacency. There is an established relationship between the mainstream media and the conservative pipeline. I think the right wing pitch is easier to digest than union worker, Gregg Shotwell, or economist Max Keiser's explanations. We are prevented from fully grasping the facts because they are so complex. What infiltrates instead are the easy bite size non-facts. Now is the time to try and understand the Auto Bailout. As Dennis Kucinich stated during the congressional hearings regarding the Wall Street Bailout...they should have occurred before rather than after.

Rush and Fox
Rush says Stand up on the Auto Bailout GOP! Fox News says: The Auto Bailout, Too Risky An Investment (These are the messages that get planted in our basic understanding. And this is about as informed as most of the middle class gets. But keep reading.)

New York Times and Max Keiser
In Playing Politics With the Auto Bailout Barry Moskowitz posits in a letter to the editor of the New York Times: "The Senate Republicans’ rejection of a bailout for America’s Big Three automakers confirms a suspicion that many working- and middle-class Americans already had — Republicans care little for the majority of citizens who suffer from economic crises." In program 1006 The Truth About Markets December 13 Max Keiser says: "auto represents workers and savers and the banks represent borrowers and speculators."

Michael Moore
In Senate to the Middle Class: Drop Dead Moore says: "Of course that is heresy to the 31 Republicans who decided to blame the poor, miserable autoworkers for this mess. And our wonderful media complied with their spin on the morning news shows: 'UAW Refuses to Give Concessions Killing Auto Bailout Bill.'"

In Democracy Now! Gregg Shotwell, union activist and writer who worked at GM for thirty years remarks "If they let these auto companies go bankrupt, it's going to turn this recession into a depression. I'm shocked that they're even contemplating this. There's no such thing as an orderly bankruptcy. You know, millions of people would be affected."

"At the beginning of any revolution is media reform" Max Keiser
"We the public are burdened with a poorly informing US media" Al Giordano

Revolucionario

2008-12-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

In April, 2000 writer/journalist Al Giordano launched the Narco News Bulletin and posited that "if the American public was poorly informed about the drug war in Central and South America, it was because the public was burdened with a poorly informing US media." In 2002 He founded the School of Authentic Journalism. Authentic journalism, he describes, is unadulterated by money and characterized by "a clear vision, a vision consistent with an authentically democratic society".

Giordano was testifying before congress against Nuclear Power when he was 16. As a young activist he was arrested over 20 times. He brought about the first ever shut down of an operating nuclear power plant in America. I bought Steal This Book, by Abbie Hoffman, this summer and saw that Giordano wrote the forward. The two were friends before Hoffman's death, and Hoffman described him as "the best political organizer of his generation." He writes for Huffington Post and Daily Kos, and Narco News where he has created participatory journalism. Go here and see what I mean. He is a revolutionary and he makes himself readily available to anyone who seeks authenticity as contrasted by corrupted, tired and worn out journalism.

How I Understand Economics

2008-12-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

Max Keiser is wildly brilliant. He does these podcasts with Stacy Herbert, who is also wildly brilliant, from Paris, where they currently live and work. If you want to start really getting the bailout, the financial crisis, any of this stuff that's happening with the economy right now, this is the place to go. The more you listen to these two, the more you want to hear. He has a delightfully insane sense of humor, she's got an uber cool vibe.

Max started his career on Wall Street in 1983. He is a financial expert, Prediction Markets inventor, documentary film maker, and the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange which is some sort of full scale prediction market. (I am not too savvy economically speaking.) He writes for Huffington Post, appears on programs in London and France, one program is called "Al Jazeera", and he produces and presents lots of films. He will be presenting BBC World's "The Oracle with Max Keiser"on the 19th of this month.

Listen to program 1004 on Max Keiser Radio Titled GD2 Brought to You by Kraft. I promise you it will be an exceptional 25 minutes. If it's your first sampling of this stuff, lucky you! It is not the first post on the page. You should be able to scroll down to find it. If you go later, check for it in the archives. Watch out! They are totally addictive.

2008-12-03T11:50:00.000-08:00

"Politik needs votes, politik needs your mind, politik needs human beings, politik needs lies." Manu Chao Politik Kills, La Radiolina.

Politics can overwhelm, consume and confuse. It takes something like a revolution to cut through rhetoric and narrative and see for yourself, as a perfectly competent individual, what's really going on. We've just had the revolution. Cumulatively, we are more organized and more alert than ever before. We can help each other raise the collective consciousness to an unprecedented level. One strategy lies in the donation of time. We are sabotaged by either sensational or at least easily digestible distractions and roadblocks which can prevent us from fully understanding countless issues. Additionally, we are hard pressed to choose from endless sources competing for our time with information that all claims to be the most critical. Many of us just don't have the time to sort through all of this and shake out the relevant stuff. There is plenty of information. The internet, like the encyclopedia, makes knowledge attainable for all of us. We are limited, however, by time and discipline. If you are interested in joining me in an effort to streamline the essentials of information in a collective effort to become informed quickly and efficiently, please email me at tracydulcemia@gmail.com Together we can make politics something that doesn't have to intimidate or overwhelm because 'Politik', when left to only a few, can kill.

Truth "Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth." Christopher McCandless

2008-10-20T05:37:00.000-07:00

I've always been a democrat. A democrat among republicans. Liberal among conservatives. Progressive among southern traditionalists. If you consider building an outdoor movie set and renting a popcorn machine to host a poolside "Fahrenheit 9/11" showing in our suburban backyard extreme, then maybe radical among moderates. I'm a lawyer, and I love democracy. Also, I grew up in the south. The south has its own kind of grit and gooey sticky lovely variety. I grew up alongside debutantes, rebels, rich folk, poor whites, disenfranchised blacks, black law school professors, cops, inmates, Episcopalians, Jews, baptists, atheists, politicians, artists, musicians, homeless, activists, good ole boys, all kinds. All laid out before me in slow cooked southern style decorum. I have a high threshold, no an insatiable craving, for diversity. So no wonder I'm excited about Senator Obama and what he represents and what he speaks for and what he believes.

But many republicans are fired up too. Who's right? And why are some people complacent? What's the explanation?

Truth.

When I prosecuted, I took some wicked cases. I also worked tirelessly on some enormous cases that were not my own. I visited crime scenes, walked past things in ordinary living rooms that were not ordinary. Relived scenes played out in household kitchens, hotel rooms, plant facilities, and wooded parks that were not right. Scenes that were horrific and awful. And then the job was to try to prove to a jury that the stuff really happened. I dismissed cases when I thought the stuff hadn't happened. I was no zealot. The stuff that went to juries was the worst of the worst that had happened in Asheville, NC. We would lay out the ugly facts. The awful truth. And let the juries decide. And sometimes the jury convicted. And sometimes not. When a jury acquits, it is possibly because the case didn't seem strong enough. It is possibly because the poor guy didn't do it. But also, it is possibly because some things are too much for jurors to accept. They just can't buy some of the really really bad stuff.

Some things are just too awful for some people to swallow. There are places we can't go in our minds sometimes. We all have these little survival mechanisms. What we can think about, what we can't think about. That's ok with me, that some people can't go to the places I went. If it means they couldn't convict, fine with me, that's how the system works. If it means they can't understand the passion I feel for the election, fine too. While some do seem to think of this election as a football game or American Idol contest, most Obama supporters are his supporters because they have made a conscious decision to be informed. For me, to be informed sometimes means losing sleep to read everything I can find on every issue I don't understand. And then losing sleep because I'm starting to understand.

There are people who are informed and people who are not. It's not easy to be informed. It takes lots of time, lots of independent reading, lots of fact checking. You have to be willing to consider things that make you sick. You are like the person who walks or works the crime scene. You know the scary sad details. You know what happened. What's happening. When McCain and Palin use buzzwords like terrorist and socialist and invoke racism and hate into the republican narrative, you see it for what it is. When Joe six-pack and Joe the plumber get priority in the national dialog while CEO's walk off with our money, and the Bush administration systematically chips away at our constitutional rights all the while readying Martial Law, you see it for what it is, as hard as it is to look at.

Truth. Some people know it and some don't. Some want to find it. Some want to hide it. Once you see some of the truth, you seek more and more. Eventually, knowing the truth is all that matters. No more blissful ignorance for you once you are there. It is a restless, hard place to be at times. But sooner or later, it is a place where we really must go, con ojos abiertos.

Help from The Rockridge Institute in Framing the Immigration Issues

2008-05-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

1. Illegal immigration has created a huge powerless workforce in the United States. This huge powerless workforce equals huge profit for CEO's and stockholders of giant corporations. Today nearly 10% of our workforce is illegal and cheap. True to basic supply and demand economic principals, this large powerless workforce drives down the price of labor. Cheap labor increases productivity and profits for employers and illegals, who are in no position to demand minimum wage, guarantee that it stays cheap. A workforce with no voice, no union, no legality, no rights and no problem working for sustenance wages is ideal for profiteering. The wealthy conservative elite wants immigrants here whether they are illegal or marginally legal because a cheap workforce equals huge profit. And even though the super rich benefit most, the upper middle class also enjoys reaping the benefits of cheap labor. States like California have literally become addicted to the cheap labor provided by illegals.

2. We are, for the most part, guided by a national dialogue monopolized by conservatives. While the rich keep getting richer, we regular voters stumble around issues such as decriminalization, amnesty or even building a fence (a fence that would no doubt tremendously profit big contractors) to keep out illegals. Conservatives have spent 3 and a half billion dollars just on think tanks to drive the conservative message machine and idea factory. Just calling it an immigration problem completely controls the way we see these people. The illegal framing suggests criminality and otherness. The term illegal alien is dehumanizing. Congress even conflates the war on terror with illegal immigration implying that these immigrants are a physical threat. These frames overlook the immense contributions these immigrants make by working hard for low wages. If Congress really wanted Illegal Immigration to stop, it could pass legislation that put the CEO of any business caught employing illegals into jail for a year, no exception. That would end illegal immigration. But conservatives won't lift a finger in the halls of congress to pass any such legislation. Instead, the conservative elite support fines to businesses which may sound like a lot to the average person but is nothing more than the cost of business for large corporations. Since Bush has been elected corporate profits have doubled but there has been no increase in wages. The Reagan revolution effectively reduced the bargaining power of union members and number of unions. There was a time in our country's history when the middle class was pretty strong. That is no longer the case, the middle class is slowly disolving leaving behind a wide divide between the upper class and the disenfranchised working class. Both political parties are controlled by funding (republicans more conspicuously) from the wealthy, so we witness no real push for change.

3. Our country's inability to understand the real issues surrounding illegal immigration has resulted in nothing short of a humanitarian crisis. These immigrants are not a physical threat, but rather a vital part of our economy that helps America function. They don't want to shoot us or kill us or blow us up. They only want to weed our gardens, clean our houses and cook our meals in search of the American dream. Due to the 1996 welfare reform bill, they are disqualified from nearly all means of government programs. Also in 1996 the IRS began issuing id numbers to enable illegal immigrants who don't have social security numbers to file taxes. Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal immigrants in the country today file personal income taxes. No doubt they hope that one day it will help them acquire legal status. Of course they automatically pay sales taxes. They work hard and contribute to society and are worthy of basic human rights and dignity. They are here pursuing a better life for their children because Mexico is a corrupt oligarchy run by a corrupt former coca cola executive. Unknown numbers of these people are dying trekking across deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. Daddies are leaving their babies in hopes of finding work to support their families. They are forced to live underground and in the shadows because of their legal status. While this country is built on legal immigration, the illegal immigration occurring in our country today amounts to nothing short of modern day slavery.

David Ford

2008-05-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

David Ford has a style that feels like he's performing a song still in the experimental stage just for you. It's underscored by one camera and one take in State of the Union. He says the same kind of stuff you've been thinking for a long time. If you've been thinking. While the production is more polished, I'm Alright Now is every bit as genuine. It's courageous to talk politics, religion, and ethics with music.

Love You

2008-04-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

Love You was written and recorded by the 1960's upstate New York band Free Design. It's included on the soundtrack for Stranger Than Fiction , produced by Marc Forster in 1996 and starring Will Ferrell. This is a must listen for the therapeutic quality it offers. Almost medicinal. It's a happy place to go.

Hey Eugene

2008-04-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

'Hey Eugene' , written and performed by China Forbes is my favorite Pink Martini song. Their album Sympathique has foreign film festival appeal and is also fun for little listeners. This group is based out of Portland, Oregon and is great music for birthday parties, cocktail hour or dining.

Old 97's

2008-04-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

This group formed in 1993 taking inspiration from Johnny Cash's 'Wreck of the Old 97' for their name. Originally from Dallas, Texas, they have the rough trailer park brawl sound that always reaches listeners like me. When I lived in Asheville, NC, I worked Night Court and shopped at Walmart because I wanted to be around authentic unpolished Appalachian Mountain people. For the same reasons, I love the State Fair. The best alt-country music has Old Crow Medicine Show grit. The Old 97's achieve. My favorites: 'four leaf clover' and 'designs on you'.

Constructor

2008-02-25T19:32:00.001-08:00

Builder Daniel Kneen resides in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. His instinct for Sky House is exact. We believe talent is critical to good building, intuition paramount to good design, and communication the lifeline to realizing a dream. Daniel brings each of these qualities to his trade. He is a pleasure to work with.

SKY HOUSE

2008-02-07T19:58:00.001-08:00

Sky House is a 18 ft by 48 ft cabin that contains a kitchen, living area, bath, bedroom, and studio loft. Located in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains on the Jonas Ridge edge of the Pisgah National Forest, it's a very good location for skiing, hiking, mountain climbing, and cycling. Travel time is roughly 1 hour from Asheville and twenty minutes from Boone, Grandfather, Sugar and Beech Mountains. Guests can enjoy an exceptional view of Table Rock and Hawk's Bill throughout the cabin and while bathing in the outdoor wood fired hot tub. For rental information, email me at tracydulcemia@gmail.com , call 423-443-2968 or visit www.blueridgeskyhouse.com

Heather Middlebrooks

2007-07-09T06:58:00.000-07:00

Heather Middlebrooks' paintings in oil, enamel, and acrylic on canvas sing. They capture the ethereal quality so inherent in their subjects. Heather is based in Knoxville, TN. Her website is a pleasure to visit. She has a beautiful watercolor collection not to be missed. http://www.heathermiddlebrooks.com/

Playroom flooring

2007-06-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

We checked Praters Flooring and Lowes for flooring choices for our playroom. We liked the bamboo and cork products ranging from $3.99 to $5.00 per sq ft. Our favorite bamboo choice was similar to the one pictured from eco friendly flooring. If we want an even more polished look like the one in the photo from Judith Wilson's book children's spaces, we might want to use a prefinished maple such as Shaw flooring's which we found can be purchased at around $4.50 per sq. ft. Another nice option would be cork. While it's a leading green purchase today, it's been the material of choice for serious decorators and design forward thinkers for years.

Light as art

2007-06-24T16:01:00.001-07:00

Lights are excellent vehicles for design.

While I love the debutant-decorum and traditional style I grew up with in the south, I'm still heavily interested in modern art and design. Competing styles are no longer mutually exclusive. We're not charicatures, we're allowed to have many different interests which can be reflected in our surroundings. I really think art belongs everywhere and can present itself in many forms from your own kids' work to an end table. Most people I know who splurged a little on light fixtures are very happy. These pendants from 2Bmod and DWR can bring a sense of design to any landscape while still performing their function.