Psychic Woman

I've mentioned before that over on Flickr, I've been doing this "take a photo a day" project, which I'm now continuing into year 3. After 2+ years of taking your own photo every day, you are desperate for new ideas. In September I discovered that there are actually holidays to be celebrated in this country every single day of the year. Wonderful holidays like National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend Day (January 11), National Garlic Day (April 19), Wiggle Your Toes Day (August 6), etc. It's wonderful reading.

So I've been using my daily photograph to celebrate that day's holiday. Many of them have been fun to work on, with the help of PhotoShop, like this one for "World Smile Day" (October 3)

A couple of days ago was "Increase Your Psychic Powers" Day and I did my best to represent that.

It was the next night when I had the dream I talked about yesterday, which began with my being so depressed that I drove off the road and into a body of water. This morning I'm thinking that maybe I actually did increase my psychic powers, 'cause I sure am depressed this morning.

Maine joins the host of other states where gay marriage has lost by only a few percentage points. How would you like to have only 5% of the population of your state decide whether you can be married or not? Think it can't happen to a nice heterosexual couple like you? How about that judge who decided that he shouldn't marry an interracial couple. Who is next? Maybe some day they'll decide that since the bible refers to left-haned people as "evil," only right-handed people should marry...and my nearly 45 years with Walt will be dissolved. Civil rights should not be up for a vote, or be decided at the whim of someone else.

(Someone is collecting signatures to get a petition on the ballot to outlaw divorce in California. Let's see how serious those right wingers really are about preserving the sanctity of marriage!!)

I'm not listening to the news today. It's all too depressing. I'm one of those who had the audacity to hope and I haven't given up hope yet that Obama can be viewed by history as one of the great presidents, if he manages to follow through on his promises. But we live in an instant gratification society and everyone expected him to "fix everything" overnight. ("it's been a whole week since the inauguration and he hasn't done anything yet!") Remember the Patriot Act? And how aghast we were to discover that this sweeping intrusion into our cherished freedoms was passed without anybody having the opportunity to read it? It is my fervent hope that the slowness with which Obama seems to be doing everything comes from his wanting to get it right. I continue to hope, but talking heads make it difficult.

Then I watched Al Gore on Letterman last night and heard about the continuing erosion of our earth, the probable irreversible death of coral, the animals species which are on the brink of extinction, the island of garbage twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific ocean, the sinking of the entire country of Bangladesh, and most of humankind's indifference to it all.

One of my blogging students from the other night has started a blog about the conditions in Congo right now. Reading that is also enough to make you depressed. I have friends from Congo who have family there now.

This morning I listened to NBC's financial expert talking about the astronomical rise in interest rates and annual fees that banks have decided to charge and how we are essentially helpless to do anything. Call the banks and protest, but if they ask you for information, don't give any or it can be used against you. Don't start a new charge account because it can show up as a negative on your credit report. Don't stop using credit cards because that can show up as a negative on your credit report. It's the ultimate Catch 22 situation.

No good news ever comes out of the Middle East.

Sometimes it just seems like there is nothing good to live for...and maybe that drive out into the wilderness and into the body of water was prophetic.

Another Victim of Harsh Times

It was a huge shock this morning when Regis Philbin mentioned that Waterford Crystal was going out of business. He was corrected by his director, Michael Ghelman, who said that there was going to be "restructuring." But it sent me to the internet to find out what's going on.

Apparently they have been losing money for the past five years and filed for bankruptcy on January 5, after attempts to restructure the business or find a buyer failed.

According to the MSNBC web site, The U.K. joint administrators said they intended to continue to run the business as they seek a buyer. Trading in the company's shares was suspended on the Irish Stock Exchange where they languished at just one-tenth of a euro cent and the company's directors — including Anthony O'Reilly, the Irish publishing magnate who along with his brother-in-law Peter Goulandris owns more than half of all Waterford Wedgwood shares — handed in their resignations.

Waterford opened for business in 1783, failed in 1850 and was reopened in 1947.

We toured the Waterford factory in 1996 when we were traveling around southern Ireland. What a fascinating place! It was, perhaps, the most interesting factory tour I've ever taken. Each piece of Waterford crystal is hand made and the workers serve a 10 year apprenticeship before they actually begin to work. The cutters have to memorize hundreds of designs and hold them in their head -- they cut from memory, not from any sort of pattern.

The tour starts in the glass blowing room, which is a show all unto itself. A team of guys working with red hot molten glass are waving these balls around seemingly inches from each other, molding the glass into shapes.

The glass is so hot that if I recall correctly it takes two days for it to cool down to a temperature where it can be handled safely with bare hands.

The most fascinating part of the tour, of course, was going through the cutting room. I sat there fascinated watching this whole room full of men all intently cutting glass, while the lead-laden powder from the glass piled up around the table and onto the floor at their feet. Literally little piles of glass dust all over the place. If I'm remembering correctly from the tour, Waterford has the highest percentage of lead of any crystal.

Do you notice anything interesting?

No face mask. All these guys lined up at work tables, breathing this fine glass dust and very few wore face masks.

At the conclusion of our tour, we had the opportunity to meet with a cutter and ask questions and I asked about that. It turns out that (at least at that time--perhaps things are different now) Ireland had no safety requirements and yes, the cutters were had health insurance. BUT, if they wore face masks and got sick, they were covered; if they chose not to wear face masks, they were not. The guy did not know of any statistics of lead poisoning among glass cutters in the Waterford factory, but I can't believe that it's not very high, given what I saw in the cutting room.

I own one or two pieces of Waterford crystal, which have been given to me as gifts, but we never bought anything while at the factory because it was just too damn expensive. Still, Waterford has become such a "name" in the world of fine crystal that it's sad to see that this company, too, is a victim of the bad economic times.