Sandra Quinones's blog

The front yard - thus far this year.....

......is coming along nicely,......perrenials are resurfacing after their "Winter Slumber".....those that chose not to return were uprooted and sent away, replaced by something else.  Not to many did that, just a few. 

 

 

 

 

 

The lower back yard begins it's transformation......

.......and Leiane couldn't be happier - after spending all day yesterday playing in the dirt & getting sooooooooooooooooo much done, yes, she's a VERY Happy Gardener!

 

 

Of course, now we'll be hitting a variety of nurseries & such for plants & such.  Not to mention the fact that some friends of ours have an abundance of FiddleHead Ferns in their yard - that they've offered up for transplanting! 

 

 

The last shot was taken from the top deck looking down at the entire area that was once covered by decking (which we tore out a couple of summers ago with the help of friend - thanks Jesus!).

 

When a tolerant city can't support a simple statement of tolerance

Posted by adn_jomalley        Posted: June 19, 2009 - 10:43 pm

I made it into the Anchorage Assembly chambers on Wednesday just about the time a Christian guy in a red shirt was testifying in detail about how gay people are into flogging. It was X-rated and creepy no matter how you cut it, but it was especially weird because my mom was in the room along with a lot of people carrying Bibles.

There had already been too many crazy-making, repetitive evenings of testimony about whether to add sexual orientation to the city’s non-discrimination ordinance. The ordinance defined “sexual orientation” as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender. It covered housing and employment. It was not breaking new ground. Similar ordinances exist in more than 100 cities. Some are 30 years old.

But pressure from church groups led assembly members to tinker with it. By Wednesday it was absurd.
The Assembly was actually considering an ordinance that would exclude transgender people completely and would make discrimination against gays and lesbians legal for all private employers in Anchorage. So instead of protecting people from discrimination, they were writing the ability to discriminate into the law.

And they were letting the circular hours of testimony go on and on, including testimony from people who don’t live in Anchorage. I guessed it was because some of those who want the issue to go away were waiting for Dan Sullivan to take office. Sullivan is a conservative guy, and many expect him to veto whatever the Assembly approves. One way or another, it seemed the measure was destined to fail.

I was there because of a photo a friend had posted online of a big black Dodge Durango that showed up at the Loussac Library the day before. It had “Straight Pride. Say no to Homo!” painted on it in white. It shocked me because it tapped into something I don’t come into contact with that often in Anchorage: blatant homophobia.

The thing that was killing me as I sat there was that it was really just an ugly war over something symbolic. Was it going to make a huge tangible change in a huge number of lives? No. It was a simple gesture of tolerance. As it stands, only a tiny fraction of those who call the city’s Equal Rights Commission to complain about discrimination end up going through the process to find a remedy. It could pass and most of Anchorage would wake up the next day largely unchanged. But the Assembly lost perspective on that and couldn’t seem to get it back.

I stepped outside onto the library lawn. It had a tense carnival atmosphere. The Christians, wearing red shirts, waved anti-ordinance signs along 36th Avenue next to the gay people and supporters swathed in rainbow flags. There were hot dogs (Christian) and sandwiches (gay), techno (gay) and hip-hop (Christian). People bobbed heads to respective beats.

Jim Minnery, the head of the Alaska Family Council, caught up with me by the hot dog stand. He’s nice enough and we went around for a while even though we disagreed. His big thing was the issue of Christian businesses having to serve gay people. He gave the example of a Christian gynecologist who refused to do in vitro fertilization for a lesbian couple in California. They sued him under nondiscrimination laws and won, he said. I told him as a far as I was concerned, the Christian gynecologists could be excused from making gay people’s babies.

But I kept thinking about Minnery’s example. In vitro fertilization was one thing, but what about emergency surgery? When you sign up to be a doctor, do you have a right to refuse patients you don’t agree with? Where does religious freedom end and human rights for gay people begin? Is “religious freedom” in this case just a code word for prejudice?

And, what about common sense? Under the ordinance, churches would be allowed to discriminate in their hiring, but church-goers would have to follow the same rules as everyone else. That seemed fair. It’s not illegal for a doctor to say, “I’m obligated to treat you, but I don’t agree with the way you live your life.” If my doctor said that, I’d be getting another doctor in a hurry. If the ordinance passes, it might mean some uncomfortable conversations. I’m not sure uncomfortable conversations infringe on anyone’s religious freedom.

I walked through the crowd reading signs. “Truth is not hate.” “Hate is not truth.” “Everyone snuggles!” Then I ran into a kid holding a sign that said “Gays recruit children.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked him.

He shrugged, and then looked straight ahead like I wasn’t there.

I went back inside just as Pastor Alonzo Patterson headed for the podium. He’s from Shiloh Baptist, maybe the biggest black church in town. He and my grandparents worked on civil rights issues in Anchorage 30 years ago.

About then I realized we weren’t just talking about Christian doctors, we were talking about any business in the city. Right now a restaurant owner can put a sign out front that says “No gays allowed,” and that would be totally fine. A health club could ban gay people from the pool. I really don’t think that’s the kind of city we live in. So why would it be so hard to make it part of the city code?

Patterson was getting worked up. He was outraged that anyone would compare the civil rights movement to the gay rights movement. Gays weren’t beaten down, he said. They weren’t lynched. I thought about Matthew Shepard, the gay kid beaten to death and tied to a fence in Wyoming in 1998. I thought of gays sent to concentration camps when my grandmother was a girl in Italy.

The ordinance change is about symbolism and that symbolism is important. It’s about making a statement that everyone is welcome here. It’s overdue. It’s common sense. I believe the majority of this town supports it.

But it appears a room full of red shirts is enough to convince some Assembly members otherwise.

MAGPIEs......

.....love these little guys......

Wee One!

5 - McKenna's WEE ONE

Isn't she ADORABLE!  Sela is her name & being cute is her game....... 

View from the roof of thr 4 story building I work in.....

....from May of this year.......

it was a good day for pictures.....and it's a great place to have lunch, catch a few rays & read a good book!

Palin: Just because she bugs you doesn't mean she isn't right

From the Anchorage Daily News - Posted by adn_jomalley Posted: June 16, 2009 - 9:42 pm

I wasn’t surprised when I watched David Letterman’s jokes about Sarah Palin last week. I wasn’t particularly outraged, either. In fact, to be honest, I laughed a little.

For anyone who missed it, the latest scandal in Palin world unfolded after the governor and her husband objected to Letterman’s jokes about Palin looking like a “slutty flight attendant” and her daughter (either Willow or Bristol, depending on how you read it) getting “knocked up” by Alex Rodriguez. Letterman made a weak apology. Palin went on the “Today” show. People organized a “Fire David Letterman” rally. Letterman made a more serious apology. And then Palin Facebooked that she accepted it on behalf of young women everywhere.

My first thought when I watched the clip of Letterman’s jokes at my desk last week was this: Hot lady winks at debates and wears Naughty Monkey pumps and encourages her daughter, the teen mom, to talk about not having sex on national television, and now she’s mad somebody made some sexist jokes? She opened the door. And, Letterman (who isn’t above going lowbrow for a laugh) just walked through it.

And I wasn’t alone. My Facebook filled with messages about how Palin was asking for trouble. Over the weekend, at the Alaska Run for Women, the governor’s flap came up in several conversations. I didn’t hear a lot of sympathy. I did hear questions about the timing. Palin and her family have been victims of sexism since they came to the national stage. Why didn’t she complain about the incest joke on “Saturday Night Live” last fall? Or the Eminem video where she’s depicted as a porn star? It seemed like opportunism. She is no feminist, people kept saying.

“My young female students react to her,” a former teacher of mine told me as we ran together for a while on the trail. “They really, really dislike her.”

I thought about that for the next mile or so. Most of the women I talked to didn’t agree with Palin politically, but I wondered about their reaction, and my reaction for that matter. Part of it was about politics, but it was about something else, too.

The last time I saw Palin in person was in November at Kaladi Brothers in Wasilla. It was early in the morning on Election Day. She was wearing old jeans and a Carhartt jacket, but she still seemed electric, sipping her white chocolate mocha as she smiled into a mob of cameras.

Palin has “that thing” people often ascribe to male politicians like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. She’s warm, photogenic, telegenic, spunky and easy on the eyes. In male politicians, people call it charisma, but for women, the same quality is more complicated. My guy friends, especially the ones who voted for her, boil it down to one word: hotness.

Hotness is a volatile commodity in the world of politics that can rally supporters and generate suspicion all at once. Think of the prettiest girl in high school. She’s loved. She’s envied. She’s sexualized. People make assumptions about how smart she is. A lot of successful women in politics dial the hotness back. Think Hillary. Think pantsuit and sensible haircut. Palin embraces the hot in her knee-high black boots and lipstick. And that’s part of what makes her so controversial.

Palin’s hotness along with her Lifetime movie personal story made her famous. Standing on the stage of the Republican National Convention, she was the beautiful beating heart of the ticket. It continues to fuel her celebrity.

It’s also a liability that makes her fodder for late-night jokes. And it does something else, too. Palin’s hotness makes women resent her.

I looked out on a sea of women runners filling the trail ahead of me. They wore pink for breast cancer awareness. They’d written the names of their mothers and sisters and friends who’d died of cancer on their shirts. There we were, all moving together down the same path.

Sure, some of us don’t like Palin’s politics, but we should pay attention to what else is going on. I laughed a little when I watched Letterman’s jokes. It wasn’t because they were funny. It was because they were mean. And somehow watching someone be mean to America’s Hottest Governor felt good. And, that wasn’t feminist at all.

The fact is, even with the pumps and the winking, she didn’t deserve it. Maybe Palin is an opportunist, maybe she’s a drama queen, maybe she’s using a feminist argument to make political hay, but in this case her underlying point is right on. Letterman was gross and out of line, no matter which daughter he was talking about. Making Letterman apologize was a win for her and for women everywhere.

There are plenty of reasons to disagree with Palin, and there might even been some reasons to dislike her.
But hotness shouldn’t be one of them.

Found this on Craigslist this morning and just HAD to share:

Top 10 Reasons Sarah Palin's "Outrage" is Misplaced and A Little Late... 10) Last September, a skit on Saturday Night Live suggested incest in the Palin family. "What about the husband?" asked a mock Times reporter. "You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska!" No outrage. Sarah Palin appeared on the show one month later in late October. 9) Days after the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy, Conan O'Brien joked, "It's true, John McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has revealed that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Palin said, 'We should never have introduced her to John Edwards.'" Where was the outrage? Was Conan promoting infidelity with an underage girl? 8 ) From two different Tonight Shows: "Governor Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. Oh, boy, you thought John Edwards was in trouble before, now he's really done it!" AND..."All the Republicans are heaping praise on Governor Palin. Fred Thompson said, as an actor, he could see them making a movie about Sarah Palin and her family. Didn't they already make that movie? I think it was called 'Knocked Up!'"--Jay Leno 7) Craig Ferguson's skit of "Larry King vs Levi Johnston" asks about "kinky sex" with the drapes open. Craig Ferguson's honorary Alaska citizenship, granted by Governor Palin wasn't rescinded. 6) "According to expense reports, Sarah Palin charged the state of Alaska over $21,000 for her children to travel with her on official business. In fairness to Gov. Palin, when she leaves them home alone they get pregnant." --Seth Meyers (SNL). Sarah Palin was in a sketch with Meyers a week earlier. 5) On October 8, 2008, Sarah Palin walked out on the ice with six year old Piper and 13 year old Willow, before the game, Conan O'Brien said, "Saturday night, Sarah Palin is going to drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' hockey game. Then Palin will spend the rest of the game trying to keep the hockey players out of her daughter's penalty box." Oh, yes he did. You get the outrage...but not a peep then. According to the new "logic", O'Brien was advocating for some really sick stuff. 4) Rush Limbaugh: "Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?" Limbaugh put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. At the time, Chelsea Clinton was 13 years old. Rush also said, "In last year's campaign, the most prominent, articulate voice for standard run-of-the-mill good old-fashioned American conservatism was Sarah Palin." Calling a young teenager a "dog" can't be helpful to her "self-esteem." Where is the apology from the leader of the GOP? 3) "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."--John McCain, Sarah Palin's running mate. Should McCain apologize to every young woman in America? 2) Palin's friend, political defender and informer of the David Letterman comments, John Ziegler, was fired from his radio show for using the "n-word" online and on air in 1997. In 2000, he was fired for spelling the "n-word" on the air. How much does that word affect the psychological health of America's youth, regardless of their race? Now he is pimping his film about how mean the "liberal media" was to Sarah Palin. [Does anyone on this planet not know what the "N" word really means? You can hide behind the "N" but you think it everytime you say it, is that not just the same as saying it in the first place? .... that is like the "I" word [idiot] when one refers to the former President. The two lowest IQ's in the history of the United States were both named BUSH! The two highest IQ's in the history of the United States were both Democrats! Can you name them?] AND...The NUMBER 1 REASON Sarah Palin's Outrage is Misplaced and A Little Late... 1) The "candidate who must be obeyed" was talking about Palin's family when he said, "Kids are off limits." Jake Tapper of ABC News interviewed then Candidate Obama, and asked, "Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying their 17-year-old daughter Bristol, who is unmarried, is five months pregnant. Do you have any reaction?" OBAMA: "I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off-limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know, my mother had me when she was 18. And, you know, how family deals with issues and -- and, you know, teenaged children, that shouldn't be the topic of -- of our politics." The Palin children have been fodder for comedians since they were brought to the national stage. Incest isn't funny. Ugly kid jokes aren't funny. Many of the things said about public figures are just flat wrong. Being "knocked up" isn't much fun. Racist comments hurt all of us. I exhausted the top 10 list before I ran out of outrageous instances ignored by the Palins. The National Organization for Women named David Letterman to their Hall of Shame. Will Letterman be joining Jay Leno? Conan O'Brien? Craig Ferguson? Seth Myers? Rush Limbaugh? Or John McCain? Of course not! I guess N.O.W. didn't bother checking Sarah Palin's "feminist" credentials. All across America, right wing radio and television talk show hosts feigned outrage in perfect synchronicity. The same people who back up Palin's high drama assertions against Letterman ignored the connections between Bill O'Reilly's irresponsible incitement and the murder of Dr. George Tiller. David Letterman, a late night entertainer, apologized. Fox New's Bill O'Reilly has not. As a parent, I understand being defensive. I just wonder what took so long. Why now? I am pretty sure of this..... 1bas·tard Listen to the pronunciation of 1bastard Pronunciation: \ˈbas-tərd\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, probably of Germanic origin; akin to OldFrisian bost marriage, Old English bindan to bind Date: 14th century 1: an illegitimate child 2: something that is spurious, irregular, inferior, or of questionable origin 3 a: an offensive or disagreeable person —used as a generalized term of abuse candy coat it anyway you want, but Levi got a piece of a underage girl, she had a illegitimate child, commonly referred to as a BASTARD anywhere in the world! People that have that history cannot complain too much about jokes made about them, they are pretty much "jokes" in their own right! Sarah Palin will be a blip on the Republican meter down the road, she is a goner, she has too much personal baggage to go beyond her current position. She best retire from public life and get her kids to church a little more often. Jokes by their very nature are often in bad taste, but we have to remember they are JOKES! Let us no forget that our Republican blowhard Rush Limbaugh is a convicted drug abuser! If you live in a glass house, it is best not act badly in public, [i.e illegitimate babies] as you are then open season for people to throw rocks at your glass house. The cream de la creme will be when one of the other Palin girls gets pregnant out of wedlock for the next National Election! Now that would be a hoot! If Sarah Palin would have kept her mouth shut, like the other 10 times she and her family were ridiculed, this would all be over and done with by now. Letterman said he was sorry. Accept that and move on, or you will get more ridicule from the media. Republicans, if only "good" people are in the party, then fine, but that is not the case. You have a bushel of bad apples just like every other party. So lick your wounds and shut up!

Saturday June 13th - aka "Dirt Day 2009"

On Friday Leiane had 5 yards delivered to our driveway - for the next phase of her gardening......and the ONLY way to get it all from the driveway to to lower back yard was one bucket at a time!  There's no other access, but steep stairs,.....soooooo we invited anyone and everyone willing to assist and has our own little Bucket Brigade!  

Thanks to all our friends - the process went off with a hitch - one bucket at a time......

Fortunately the weather cooperated (thank goodness, hauling buckets of mud would have been AWFUL!).....and with the help of all those pictured and some that weren't - the entire enterprise was completed in just a mere two hours!!!!

Now the envisioning begins for Leiane, as she starts the creative process of it all!  Just like when we first moved in and the front yard was just lawn - and now is a gorgeous floral & rock attraction - so will the back yard be when she's done creating.

Now the real fun begins as she get inspired to create on a blank canvas, using drift woods, rocks, plants, etc,......

The Wealthiest Man in the WORLD:

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on.