Sunday, November 29, 2015

Advent onset Telemann - Oboe Sonatas


Clear lines that would have fun tactile qualities as an embroidery project
Festive Holly and Poinsettia motif
God has instructed RantWoman that advent is to be observed with the Oboe, baroque or early classical. RantWOman is unclear whether further instructions and Bible readings will be forthcoming. In the meantime, RantWoman hopes this cultivates a spirit of worship.


Saturday, November 28, 2015

Rossini Barber of Seville Fantasie for Piano 6 hands at Classical Underg...



Christmas Cactus on Planet RantWoman
Christmas Cactus 11 28 2015

RantWoman celebrates the email #blackFriday which has lasted weeks already. RantWoman celebrates with an eccentric accumulation of electronic gifts. Enjoy.

The following MIGHT have resulted if the three RantChildren were able to forestall nuclear family meltdown and hold the Siblinghood of Personkind together long enough to

1. Rehearse our 1 piano 6 hands endeavors to concertworthiness

2. Find venues that would book us.

3. Put on concert wear and present ourselves professionally.

RantWoman recommends enjoying this bit from The Barber of Seville instead of waiting around for the RantSiblings.


Friday, November 27, 2015

A Colbert Christmas - Please be patient (Feist)

In observance of National Buy-Nothing Day, with options for those Bad Friends who absolutely MUST buy something. Please by patient!


Sunday, November 22, 2015

The first student sit-in at Princeton in 20 years

RantWoman THOUGHT she was supposed to stay on a sort of linear path involving some basic "do this daily to function" tasks and some work RantWoman would characterize partly as #BlackLivesMatter. RantWoman thought this, but apparently God has other ideas or at least eccentric pre-holiday gifts arriving with  the next increment of #christmascactus


Look, see, things continue to flower
Christmas cactus 11 21 2015


RantWoman is interested to learn via eddies in her tweet stream that ever since the black students at Mizzou were able to force out the university president, there has been a wave of protests at a number of colleges: Towson State in MD, the University of North Carolina, a couple others. RantWoman finds it energizing to hear of these protests.


Don't tell anyone: there is graffitti painted on the tiger
Tiger in front of Nassau Hall

#occupyNassau  #PrincetonProtest

Posted in a couple places on Facebook:
Last night when I was following events on a different hashtag, Twitter served me uup a couple items with the tag #OccupyNassau about Princeton students occupying Nassau Hall, at one time the nation's capitol asking Princeton to address Woodrow Wilson's racist legacy and calling for more student space specifically for the Black experience.
On Facebook, the hashtag has a wonderful video of students' statements about why they are participating, a great solidarity statement by Cornel West and several other items I did not interact with.
Other items appear under #PrincetonProtest
My facebook feed includes both other veterans of Nassau Hall sit-ins and lots of people who probably wonder, look you went to Princeton, why did you have to go and sit in too?
It was  senior year, an anti-apartheid protest related to divestment questions.  Also, my Freshman year anti-apartheid activists held an all-night study-in inside the section of Firestone library that houses government and UN documents. I thought of participating and supported it but did not join in.
So this time I want to show solidarity just by posting this to Facebook.

My freshman year I lived in 1901 hall. I lived in a 3-room suite with two other women. We were told that in the 1800's our suite would have housed one Princeton gentleman and his slave but the custom was to free slaves upon graduation. That legacy is a piece of what one acquires by enrolling in Princeton.

I would not have learned as much about the diversity of African American experience if I had, say, stayed in MT for college. I continue to learn. And I support students urging people to continue to learn, and I think it's probably about darn time people thought about Woodrow Wilson being what one commentator calls "a racist pig, even by the standards of his time."

Student statements, a sampling
Naimah Hakim '16 Black Justice League organizer
Cornel West "Justice is what love looks like in pulbic."

Why students are participating: iffy audio and interesting signs if you can read them

Rev William Barber


Daily Princetoninan: students walk out, occupy Nassau Hall, present demands

Daily Princetonian: Eisgruber and BJL come to agreement

One of the things RantWoman really likes about how this sit-in turned out is a commitment to continued conversation! RantWoman expects we are going to learn / relearn a lot more about Woodrow Wilson. Gotta love that continuing revelation!
Article: Woodrow Wilson was a racist pig even by the standards of his day.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Gratitude, the Pumpkin Patch, Faithfulness

RantWoman really really is trying to cultivate gratitude but other things keep showing up in the pumpkin patch too, kind of like thesilly pilgrim hat no pumkin RantWoman has ever seen really needs.

Happy Thanksgiving pumpkins, one with a pilgrim hat


Take the old hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness. RantWoman made the mistake of clicking on one link. There were SO many owww's in the performance  worming their way into RantWoman's earworm file, bless us oh lord and forgive RantWoman excessive candor, that it took RantWoman listening to THREE other versions to clear her head.

And never mind about gendered language.

RantWoman is not sure whether it is good or not to have kind of a built-in filter that goes to music sometimes in preference to arguing theology in the words.

RantWoman had to STOP, though, for fear of wandering into the realms of islamophobia and bad theology bilge she is trying to distract herself from

The Oww version is at the bottom.


Babbi Mason, First Baptist Church Jacksonville FL with warm intro

Rev. Rance Allen

Cannot figure out who but at least there is a little more arrangement

Went to #1 on iTunes but such an off earworm that it took 3 other versions to clear my head!

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Nadia Bolz Weber, Annoying People, Sunsets, God wanting to be known




Nadia Bolz Weber on God wanting to be known more in annoying peoplethan in sunsets



RantWoman is not quite sure she has enough tatoos to get here. MAYBE tatoos would help?

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Gratitude; Christmas Cactus

Grateful for the continuing flowering of the #ChristmasCactus.

Grateful for enough eyeball function and the right geekery to be able to see the blossoms in the photo.


Find the pink blossoms. Find the pink and white blossoms.
Christmas Cactus 11 14 2015
Grateful this time for RantMom's "I MUST get my family together and feed them" instincts, and for getting an early start a little ahead of Thanksgiving, just in time to celebrate RantMom's  BIRTHDAY!!!!

Celebration a little belated, but family tradition of inviting from the island of misfit toys will generate a fun, interesting guest list.

Fun, interesting guest list includes Irrepressible Nephew (Yeah!!!) but not his parents (Oh Well.)


Friday, November 13, 2015

Watch oh lord with those who wake or watch or weep tonight, but why Paris?



Lit Candle cupped in hands
Pray for Paris
from sojo.net
First we get the Pray for #Paris part down. It's monstrous. There are ohter places where monstrous things are happening: Burundi, Syria, numerous places in Ukraine. many places in Mexico, even in gun crime terms some places in the US.

But tonight we pray for #Paris.

And we hold questions:

--Why Paris?

   --RantWoman is not aware of Paris being involved for instance in the battle of the bomimbing campaigns in Syria.

    --RantWoman is not aware that Paris has done anything one way or the other as far as Europe's current refugee crisis.

   --Leftovers from #CharlieHebdo?


--Why now when the climate change talks will bring many more dignitaries, okay and security details in just a few days?

Eiffel Tower Peace Sign

--And why the choice of targets?

   --An American death metal band concert?

  --A Cambodian restaurant?

 --Okay, the prime minister was at the soccer game....

But still, Why #Paris?

Ghoulish skeleton fiddler





House eyes: Dark and Stormy, with Binge Blog Leftovers: Continuing Revelation

Yea verily, not likely RantWoman's first Quaker apostasy: RantWoman's experience is that God shows up in meetings run all kinds of ways, under different modesls of consensus and even, gasp, under Roberts' Rules of Order. That is God better show up because RantWoman will not get done what is needed without God.

Apparently spookiness helps too.


Oh Look! Continuing Revelation
Look! Careful what you may see!
In RantWoman's most recent Roberts Rules of Order experience God showed up by granting RantWoman the posterior fortitude to sit through the entire proceeding so that the description of the committee RantWoman chairs could be amended in the organization's constitution.

God also showed up with a quaking need, after multiple rounds of vexatious election votes repeating themes from previous years to speak about people wearing too many hats and positions rotating among friends with limitations on the inclusion of new talent. God has not yet showed up in the right words in email or phone conversation. Hold that problem in the Light.

In the realm of Angelic troublemakers:
WA had a law like the ADA decades before the rest of the country. One of RantWoman's angelic troublemakers gave a speech recently about the first two cases she helped file under this legislation:

Case No1. The predecessor of the Dept of Services for the Blind resisted hiring a blind mental health specialist.

Then shortly,Case No 2. the Talking Book and braille library could not imagine hiring a blind receptionist.

That was decades ago.

in the realm of need for continuing revelation, this very year, the Governor's commission on Employment of People with Disabilities, an organization that has plenty of access to training about how to produce accessible documents, distributed at least one iteration of press release as a poorly produced PDF that was unreadable to users of some versions of screen reading software and comical because of scanning errors to users of other versions of the software.

If RantWoman were anywhere near the pure light of virtue she vaguely things might be achievable in some distant millenium, RantWoman would spend a rainy Friday the 13th playing with accessibility tools to see whehter she can in fact extract from email enough suggestions to get the offending documents read.

Fear not. There is not enough virtue in the entire universe to get RantWoman revved up about software tricks tonight. Instead, a link to the pure unvarnished layers of one simple proclamation AND of need for continuing revelation in the form of eager young former Americorps interns now being schooled at RantWoman's feet.
RantWoman on Training about Accessible Document Creation

Sardonic pumpkins and Friday the 13th prayers.

It's a dark and stormy Friday the 13th. Western WA REALLY, Really, really needs the rain, but the dark and stormy thing still still wears on people.

It's weathermen in parkas season on WA mountain passes. Western WA really needs the moisture.

There has been enough of an earthquake in Japan to generate tsunami warnings all around the Ring of Fire.

The world's heart beats for #Paris. RantWoman thinks there are some other cities the world's hear needs to be beating for too, but somehow a assault rifles showing up somewhere not already under bombardment gets people's attention. So RantWoman is sending prayers!

 and RantWoman has binge blog images left over.

God Bless us all. (gospodi pomilyi / gospodi blagoslovi)


Three pumkins leering sardonically



Binge Blog: not the first, not the last, leftovers


Leftover Halloween graphic
Houses, Full Moon, Bats Flapping Wings
 

The bedbugs have offered to help RantWoman screen her email. Frankly, don't tell the bedbugs but their "help" would not necessarily be RantWoman's first choice. Nevertheless, they may be who is available.

Stay tuned for further communications efforts

Monday, November 9, 2015

Laura Alonso, Representative, Argentine National Congress

A really cool interview vaguely election-themed except that the elections are in Argentina!




As an aside, RantWoman remembers sometime in the 1990's when Francis Fukuyama, the person conducting this interview proclaimed The End of History. RantWoman wonders what he has to say about "The end of History" 30 years on.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Christmas Cactus Increment of Gratitude

Will RantWoman get posted or will she not reflections on Favorite Angelic Troublemaker's youth, people in other parts of her life besides Meeting wearing too many hats, and why or why, GOD, is RantWoman called in more than one part of her life to excuse me 25 years... is all well and good and....?

Who cares? RantWoman's #christmascactus is sharing another increment of abundance!


Christmas Cactuses Nov 7
Glory bursting forth



Enjoy and exude gratitude.


Monday, November 2, 2015

Binge Blog The bedbugs and "Not Good for the Community."

Apparently the bedbugs want to participate in the Halloween / All Souls day binge blog. Who knew?

Binge blogging surrounded by flapping bats and leering pumpkins
The Bedbugs' favorite picture from RantWoman's inage binge

Recently RantWoman has received various emanations from her Meeting's bedbugs. RantWoman has been given to understand that the emanations have something to do with the bedbugs' custom of offering a State of Society missive on leap days. Since RantWoman's Meeting is getting started early about the State of Society, the bedbugs also seem to have a lot to say.

RantWoman is aware that, as a conscientious interpreter, she is supposed to render utterances word for word, grammatical lapse for grammatical lapse. Frankly RantWoman cannot pick single voices out of the crowd. Some of the bedbugs also either harken back to the number and formal / informal patterns of early Quaker plain speech or just like "they" for being non-gender-specific even if wrong in number, RantWoman is simply going to do the best she can to render the thoughts in somewhat comprehensible English.

Please note : the text will NOT for instance be subjected to either smartphone speech recognition or smartphone autocorrect.

The bedbugs are cranky. They do NOT like the time change.

The bedbugs are dyspeptic. They are being told repeatedly how badly Seattle needs rain and moisture, but they are cross about grey and grey and endless piles of slimy leaves for the likes of RantWoman and Ambassador Thwack to snowplow their way through.

The bedbugs are irascible and irritated. They think they are entitled NOT even to think about traffic hazards, white cane physics (the branch of physics where cars are SUPPOSED to stop at the sight of a person with a white cane in their half of the roadway but nothing about the "supposed to" changes the physics of what happens if the cars do not stop), grab the blind person and bless them approaches to street crossing, otherwise known as drag someone across a busy street ignoring all good sense unintentional encounters with data of the form "Hell yes that is a more dangerous section of street than average." Mainly the bedbugs appreciate the point of even being alive to celebrate All Saints Day despite a number of outrageous Grab the Blind Person and Bless them moments.

Do any readers want to guess who besides RantWoman these outrageous Grab The Blind Person moments involved or WHEN this was occurring.

Hint: "It's not good for the Community" Friend earned this particular nom de blog for, to RantWoman's ear telling RantWoman not even to try to talk about the issue while the other Friend was baying in public about....  Never mind why the $##$@* RantWoman is still upset!

The bedbugs are actually not used to seeing RantWoman so upset she cannot talk, but they realize that if RantWoman is in that state she may or may not be able to pick up the phone and say ever so politely in words that make sense to people who do not even want to think about problems that.... The bedbugs are familiar with RantWoman's proclivity for email, a gift that has been well exercised in this situation.

And guess what! The ONLY indication in the form of direct communication that ANYONE gets how deeply troubling and offensive and #$@Q#$#$ dangerous this problem was to RantWoman is none other than the offending Friend himself! RantWoman's brain is still short circuiting so badly about the entire topic that she is not even going to try to name the titles of all the Friends who.... SOMEONE, please hold them all in the Light and COPE if around RantWoman Light spills over into Inner Blowtorch! And this goes double for anyone taking said Friend's word for it that RantWoman is fine without finding a way to ask RantWoman!

Furthermore the bedbugs see Wonder Quaker on the horizon. At this point RantWoman is glad that Conflict is a Gift of God Friend has himself moved away from his own daily insistence on crossing a very busy street with stoplights at the top and bottom of a hill and a bus stop in the middle between the lights. And did RantWoman mention higher than average car vs ped accident rates, data collected during media coverage of a multiple fatality drunk driver vs ped accident on that same stretch of road.

There. Now will the bedbugs or won't they subside for awhile, at least until Leap Day rolls around...? Will they calm down enough to hear lots of other voices at RantWoman's Meeting?

Stay tuned?


Creeping, creeping...

Shhhhh, The HOLIDAYS are creeping up on us. On Planet RantWoman it is not permissible, unless one is say a performer needing to plan rehearsal and event schedules, to speak of Christmas, etc until after Halloween.

Halloween is over.

And RantWoman's Christmas cactuses are budding, a season which always fills RantWoman's heart with joy!

Budding Nov. 2
Unruly houseplants and especially Christmas cactuses
Let us see what other joys one can find.


Belated Binge Blog:Does your Halloween costume marginalize people with disabilities?


Jack-o-lanterns with really different eyes
3 pumpkins, really different eyes

RantWoman, MUST YOU always argue and quibble with EVERYONE about EVERYTHING?

Hopefully not QUITE Everything. But even this wonderful video made RantWoman argumentative. See below








See, charmed as RantWoman is, the video also put her in mind of previous reflections about scars, the grotesque, and other topics that are scary year-round.
Map like a Pirate but exercise too!

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Horror: Kwitcherbitchin' with Pumpkin Witch

Presenting:

RantMom at the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme computing.

RantMom, between
Internet Searches
Thank you God for planting in both RantWomen's heads the thought that RantMom should just show up at the Friendly Neighborhood Center during regular hours and RantWoman would help her in approximately the same terms she helps other people.

What does that say? How about that? Okay, click / try tapping on that.

RantWoman has been helping another customer in approximately these terms. RantWoman realized that the same approach definitely applies to RantMom. If RantWoman can talk her through a couple times, she cannot help knowing at some point how to do on her own. RantWoman means to say more about RantMom and excessive blinkiness but that will be on another blog.


RantWoman in Tech Support All Star / Reality Check Cheerleader mode.


Smiling Pumpkin in witch's hat on background of candles
Pumpkin Witch,
Tech Support Goddess
Reality Check Cheerleader wants to say to RantMom,

"Look Ma, you are doing FINE. Listen to all these other people and what they struggle with.

Now, keep trying.

and Kwitcherbitchin'

and be glad you have only your own problems.

Hold RantMom in the Light and not just all those candles in the picture!


Binge Blog: medium scary with drumming



Imagine
Imagine a drumhead with...

Bung  Bung  Bung

RantWoman heard this week via Facebook of a Buddhist nun she knows. RantWoman remembers her from one context but thinks she saw her in several places. She played a drum and walked a lot. The playing a drum part is supposed to make one feel more peaceful.

RantWoman does not automatically take to this flavor of peace. In face, Sometimes RantWoman can become downright hostile. Sometimes if RantWoman hears even ONE more....

Neverthless RantWoman is very glad Buddhist nun friend is still walking.

Queries: note to whoever reads this. Make some queries. Suggestion: queries about being both blessed and vexed at the same time. Or ask your guide for another direction and THEN make some queries.




The Horror: Just Died / Not Dead Yet


RIP, but first
Belligerent Request from someone
demanding that people  figure out
who their friends are according to his method
This post is dedicated to Mr. Attack Receptionist, who very sweetly, understandably still misses his late wife.

Dude, thank you so much for this posting.

Look, RantWoman does not really care about your views of resurrection offered in response to someone else's prayers. Furthermore, RantWoman is decidedly emoji-challenged.

RantWoman will certainly miss you, both because you are ALMOST as good at Intemperate emails as RantWoman herself, and because you are WAY more likely to send the intemperate emails at wee hours of the morning.


Rest in Peace.

And no, RantWoman is not even going to bother about the Latin. It would not help.


Yeah, Yeah, premature in this case but Dude is in hospice
Crosses, tombstones, trees,
perhaps suggesting
a multiconfessional graveyard