Secret Gift Project, and a Rant
First, thank you all so very much for the nice comments on my sock...although I regret to say that nobody who commented was my pal. Faraway land, in this case, actually means somewhere in continental Europe, so abandon hope all ye Americans, Canadians, and UKers.
With the socks done, I'm now turning my fulltime attention to my SGP, which has a Priority Mail-induced deadline of September 24. Have you forgotten SGP? Here's a glimpse:
It's coming along pretty well, and I think I can be done before schedule, slow knitting and all. (You want evidence that I am a super-slow knitter? Carolyn is making the same project (with the same yarn even!), and emailed me the other day that it takes her about an hour to complete one of the diamond repeats, which is 12 rows. You know how long it takes me? 2 hours. I.e. twice as long. And that's on Addis, without a cable needle. I sincerely hope, Carolyn, that you are making a smaller size than I am.) But I will have to devote most, if not all, of my knitting time between now and then to it, which means not so much blog fodder. So I may be scarce for a while.
I did stop by my brand new LYS this afternoon to check out their wares. They're a little understocked, I think, and very heavy on the luxury brands, but I grabbed some sportweight merino in the perfect mossy green for Anna's Elfines, and I also got a Lantern Moon tote that I am going to donate to the Give a Little prize pot. You can see it below, with the yarn and a tired Weiner:
Which brings me to my rant. It is truly inspiring to see how much the knitblog community (which is only a a drop in the blog bucket, which is only a drop in the national bucket) has given to the Red Cross so far. But it also worries me, as it gives credence to one of the big administration talking points right now, which is that we should all be excited and proud at how well the American people are coming together to support each other. Please: don't be fooled by this rhetoric. Look past it and see it for what it is: an attempt to deflect criticism of the administration's (at best) wildly mismanaged or (at worst) deliberately callous response to Katrina. Amanda Marcotte, at Pandagon, has an excellent explication of this attempt at wiggling out of blame.
And, similarly, don't be fooled by the claim that this is "just" a humanitarian crisis. It is a political crisis. It is a crisis that highlights exactly how racist and classist our current administration is, and how much its foreign policy is directly compromising domestic safety (and don't get me STARTED on terrorism et al).
Daily Kos has chronicled numerous instances of officials actually turning away aid. So has Lauren, whose friend Chris has firsthand knowledge of it.
We should all be sick and sad at the devastation wrought by Katrina, but we should be horrified and outraged at BushCo's response to it. If this doesn't make us all activists, I don't know what can.
If you only have knitting blogs on your Bloglines, here are some you should add:
Pandagon
Daily Kos
Atrios
Talking Points Memo
With the socks done, I'm now turning my fulltime attention to my SGP, which has a Priority Mail-induced deadline of September 24. Have you forgotten SGP? Here's a glimpse:
It's coming along pretty well, and I think I can be done before schedule, slow knitting and all. (You want evidence that I am a super-slow knitter? Carolyn is making the same project (with the same yarn even!), and emailed me the other day that it takes her about an hour to complete one of the diamond repeats, which is 12 rows. You know how long it takes me? 2 hours. I.e. twice as long. And that's on Addis, without a cable needle. I sincerely hope, Carolyn, that you are making a smaller size than I am.) But I will have to devote most, if not all, of my knitting time between now and then to it, which means not so much blog fodder. So I may be scarce for a while.
I did stop by my brand new LYS this afternoon to check out their wares. They're a little understocked, I think, and very heavy on the luxury brands, but I grabbed some sportweight merino in the perfect mossy green for Anna's Elfines, and I also got a Lantern Moon tote that I am going to donate to the Give a Little prize pot. You can see it below, with the yarn and a tired Weiner:
Which brings me to my rant. It is truly inspiring to see how much the knitblog community (which is only a a drop in the blog bucket, which is only a drop in the national bucket) has given to the Red Cross so far. But it also worries me, as it gives credence to one of the big administration talking points right now, which is that we should all be excited and proud at how well the American people are coming together to support each other. Please: don't be fooled by this rhetoric. Look past it and see it for what it is: an attempt to deflect criticism of the administration's (at best) wildly mismanaged or (at worst) deliberately callous response to Katrina. Amanda Marcotte, at Pandagon, has an excellent explication of this attempt at wiggling out of blame.
And, similarly, don't be fooled by the claim that this is "just" a humanitarian crisis. It is a political crisis. It is a crisis that highlights exactly how racist and classist our current administration is, and how much its foreign policy is directly compromising domestic safety (and don't get me STARTED on terrorism et al).
Daily Kos has chronicled numerous instances of officials actually turning away aid. So has Lauren, whose friend Chris has firsthand knowledge of it.
We should all be sick and sad at the devastation wrought by Katrina, but we should be horrified and outraged at BushCo's response to it. If this doesn't make us all activists, I don't know what can.
If you only have knitting blogs on your Bloglines, here are some you should add:
Pandagon
Daily Kos
Atrios
Talking Points Memo
posted by Ashley at 9:44 PM
12 Comments:
Your SGP looks fabulous! So you are using addis, check, cabling without a cable needle, check, now which method of cabling without a cable needle? I am finding wendy's method the quickest for me...wendyknits.net in her tips. I haven't touched my cabling project in about a week...I need to get back on the horse, I may knit faster, but you'll surely finish it before me! Lately I've been easily sidetracked by other projects...
I've got similar misgivings about having pride in private donations. In my understanding, private donations should pick up the lost causes--the folks that will get overlooked by any government plan, even a good one. If private donations are covering the main need, then there are an awful lot of people slipping throught the cracks. I'd rather vote for a tax increase before a disaster than give to the Red Cross afterwards.
SGP looks great, although I've forgotten what the initials stand for. Whatever it is, it looks lovely.
You're absolutely right about this being a political crisis. And right now Dubya's busy trying to do some damage control to repair the political mess he's made. Not responding to the actual crisis or taking steps to make sure something like this can't happen again. Nope, he's trying to fix up his image before his approval ratings dwindle to nothing. Makes me so mad I could spit nails.
I have nothing intelligent to say about the mess in the south, so I'll just say I like your knit; it looks very nice indeed, and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing!
I hope school is going well.
Well said.
I'm with y'all.
I feel sick, sick, sick at Shrub's inability to look back and reflect on past events and mistakes and learn from them.
Did any of you have 'time-outs' or have to sit in the corner when you were younger to 'think about what you did?' I had lots of those.
I think Barb dropped the ball with Shrub, though.
well said. it should never have happened, and god do we dare hope that the voters will actually learn from this mess and act with their vote next time?
Very well said. It is amazing what you see firsthand here in Houston right now with so many Katrina survivors here.
The irony of it all? The influx of citizens we have in our city - many who might stay for good - may tip the scales to make Houston a Democrat city. (42% of the vote went Democratic for the last presidential election.)
Thanks for the links, Ashley. I think what you said is completely right-on...
Ashley, you are sounding like a crazy commie pinko radical anarchist! Isn't this blog supposed to be nothing but knitting? JUST KIDDING!! KP and I thought your post was very well articulated--it's like you have a Ph.D. or something! The only question is, will you change the name of your blog? ;) Christine's comment makes me feel good about Houston. Here's an article that might make you feel good about your old stomping ground, the ATX.
Austin American-Statesmen Article.
And KP says that Austin Will Wynn is just relentless about getting things taken care of. I myself helped staff the convention center with volunteers, so if nothing else, we can feel okay about local efforts without buying into adminstrative claptrap about americans giving and coming together.
New LYS! Yay!
Hey, Ashley,
I'm tagging you! Hope you don't mind. The questions are on my blog.
Vim's comment made me giggle. Doesn't she know that there are armies of us crazy radical commie knitters?
O
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