Pyrex mystery!

Meanwhile, whilst thrifting...I have a bad habit of finding things mysterious to me and trying to identify them. Yesterday I found this small round clear glass piece of Pyrex, marked "France D". It has a sloped base, but sits flat on the taller rims. It has a semi-circle notch on both sides, opposite to one another, that almost look like ashtray ridges. I've looked everywhere. My best guess is that it's some sort of obscure laboratory part. I'm interested in selling it when I find out what it is. It's my current mystère-du-jour.

I'm sitting in bed eating cinnamon toast and listening to talk radio. It's election day and boy do I not give a flying fuck. I am sick of the constant phone calls, the mail full of glossy attack ads, and the general vomit of political signs all over town. I am done done done. No matter how much I care about the issues, come election day, I usually feel this way. The whole process makes me hate to participate, hate to vote. I'd rather pretend to not care than participate in the orgy of power. That being said, I will step away from the computer and go vote, because I need to shut up about everything if I'm not willing to do the easiest thing available to me.

Cheers to all! Happy thrifting :)

Linking up with Sir Thrift-A-Lot's Thirftasaurus :)

Update: A friendly comment from a reader revealed that this is a milk saver! Thanks readers!

Whilst thrifting...

What I saw today whilst thrifting:

1. Two children, in two separate Costco-size shopping carts, abandoned at the back of a large thrift store, parked underneath large shelves, while the adults completely ignored them. One was a baby. The baby was staring at the plywood shelf above him. The two-year-old girl was gnawing on the shopping cart. I wanted to scream at the mother, but I flash-forwarded in my mind to what that would look like, and I walked away.

2. A woman screaming into a cell phone, in between racks of women's clothing, "No! The government will pay! No! You tell her! The government will pay!" I rolled through the options in my mind for what the government was supposed to be paying for, and I lost a good fifteen minutes.

3. A fifty-year-old contractor-looking character, flirting with the busy volunteer behind the register, asking incessantly how old things were, if they were valuable, where they came from, etc. I wanted to say, "Dude! Can't you see she's busy and there are five people in line?!" Dude. She was like eighty years old, and clearly not interested. It was obvious.

Sales tax legislation.

Unpainted Ceramic Napkin Holder From JayKay Molds - Cool, huh?

Dear [Congressperson],

I am a small business owner with an online presence. I collect sales tax as currently required.

The current federal legislation on the line re. online sales tax collection would require me to collect sales tax from each individual based on their personal state rate. This would make my business impossible to run.

I am happy to collect sales tax to reduce unfair bias in the online marketplace. If there were to be a federal online sales tax which was siphoned directly to the federal government, I could maintain my business, and the government would receive its share.

Please vote 'no' on the current bill. It will kill small businesses which are helping individuals to maintain solvency in a still-wasting economy.

Thank you,

[Your name here]

In the Name of the Father

Today, we are told that the killings in Syria have again crossed the lines of the imagination. People are being killed execution-style in their homes and safe houses, and government officials say that each and every person was killed as a part of a terrorist sweep.

War changes people. I've seen it in my own life. It creates mental illness in numbers too large to imagine, and it's so ugly, all most of us can do is turn our eyes away so we don't have to see the ugliness. People who are tortured, people who see their friends murdered - these people are forever changed. This is why soldiers returning from the Middle East commit crazy crimes, and kill themselves. They are terribly wounded by what they've seen, and what they've done. War brings out the worst in all of us, and we pass the worst parts of ourselves on to our children, and our children's children.

Peace is difficult. It is painful and sacrificial. But it is the only way we can survive without killing our own souls. It's the only way we can create a world that is worth living in, a world that is fit to give to our children.

That's all I have for today folks. You can help Syrian refugees in tangible, practical ways by giving to Mennonite Central Committee, who provides material resources to refugees in Jordan.

Throw away government?

 

Election season makes me crazy. Living in the US means that it's pretty much always election season. Somehow it's the norm for everyone to put their energy into candidates, instead of their communities. Millions of dollars are spent by individuals who believe that their candidate will make their life better. But what has government ever done for you? Has it given you a hug when you were tired and sad? Did it make you a sandwich when you were hungry? Did it give you a place to live when you were homeless? Or did it mostly just flap its gums telling you to pay attention to it?

How about this election season, you make a conscious choice to invest in your community, so that next time election season rolls around, you care less about who might get elected, and more about what you're doing to bring positive change in your community.

Ah, the good old days...

Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole. - Vaclav Havel

3. The Chilean Coup of '73

Now to be fair, I am also equally fascinated by the Argentinean coup of the same decade (1976). And unlike yesterday, I will outline this love through film.

1. Missing: Jack Lemmon. Sissy Spacek. Disappeared people. Directed by Costa Gavras. Amazing. This is based on a non-fiction book of the same name, and is not explicitly about the '73 coup as it doesn't name names of the oppressors. It does, however, make clear the U.S. involvement in the matter, which is despicable. You can learn more about the disappeared here. It's interesting to watch an American film about U.S. citizens in Chile. It makes we wonder if that is why I cared to begin with. It really is difficult to overcome that intrinsic apathy towards people different from oneself.

2. Waking the Dead: Billy Crudup. Jennifer Connelly. This isn't a true story, but centers on the Catholic Church's response to Chile in the midst of the coup. It focuses on this through one particular American couple who disagrees strongly about the rightness of the interference. Is it right to smuggle people into the U.S.? Is it right to interfere in another country's disturbance? Note: Graphic sex.

3. Imagining Argentina: This is a film that is difficult to believe was even made. It is beautiful in so many ways, but incredibly raw and ugly at the same time. I commend the actors for their willingness to portray such an important topic: the disappearing of 30,000 Argentinean citizens by their military government between 1976 & 1983. This is also a book, which I own but have not yet read. Note: Graphic sex and torture.

War is ugly. I think that my own interest in South American coups might be linked to my own familial background and oppression. It's very difficult for me to talk about and think about my own family's suffering at the hands of a military dictatorship, but it's a whole lot easier to talk and think about things that are less connected to me and my life.

Note: The above photo is of the inland Amazon river shore. It was the closest I could get to Chile in my own photo collection.