Don't miss it

So yes, I've been getting too political lately. The state of the world, the concerns of nations.

A recent discussion with friends showed real concern for the future. With the problems in oil and food prices and mortgages and political controveries and refugees and religious hatreds, was there no hope?

Only one thing to do:

Celebrate beauty.

Here's some that's right close by.

Don't miss it.

It'll give you perspective.

Phone calls and letters

Sometimes you just have to say something.

It might take a letter, it might take a phone call, but sometimes you just can't sit back and let the status stay quo.

Take last week for instance. It was the phone book that got my activist cells going and I've never been able to run from the feeling that if something is not right in the world then steps need to be taken to change things so why not just start stepping.

The lady on the phone was very nice but very concerned when I told her I had been offended. She said they'd thought they were doing things right and they'd been doing it that way for 40 years and thank you for mentioning it and they'd talk it over.

What had rubbed me the wrong way was the listings in the phone book. Last name, comma, man's name and then -- in parentheses -- woman's name, then address and dash, dash, dash, phone number. Maybe other South Davis residents found that acceptable but I don't know why. I'm not a raging feminist, nor am I all that young and independent. But I'm not a parenthesis to someone else either.

More distressing than that they would ever consider doing this and that they would actually do it for 40 years, is that no one in South Davis County has apparently brought it up before. Since the 60s.

You can never pretend you have much clout in situations like this. But sometimes it only takes a suggestion.

Other times a suggestion isn't enough.

It wasn't a phone call, but what is famously known in my family as a strongly worded letter, that I sent five-plus years ago in my first correspondence with a President of the United States.

I've not often been brassy enough to try to bend the ear of someone whose ear is bent so often it probably doesn't hear anymore. But this was a case that needed addressing even if it just rated a check mark in the "opposed" column on a spread sheet placed on his desk at the end of a week. I had to try.

It included lines like, "America has been a country that has supported peace and stability throughout the world. How can we threaten war against a country that has not threatened anyone and apparently has no connection with the World Trade Center attack?" and "American has always been a good citizen. How can we defy the concerns of people around the world and the will of the United Nations?" and "You have lost the good will of other nations and of your own citizens...Please don't attack Iraq." It was dated March 11, 2003.

He didn't listen to me. And I don't know if the people at the phone book publishers will either.

I don't always have success. But I always have to try.

Isn't there a better way?

We were browsing the aisles of a boutique just down from L'Opera a trip or so ago, when I heard the commotion outside.

I had, in fact, just been pretending to browse since I'm a little out of my element in charming little Parisian boutiques, and rather more afraid of someone showing me the door with a "what makes you think you belong in here?" kind of a comment (or should I say, Qu'est-ce que vous faites ici?). But my daughter not only belongs but positively owns the place with her fashion sense and style so while she browsed in earnest, I just drank it all in.

The shouting outside was an interesting development, so I went to check it out. Some sort of a labor demonstration proceeded up the street. Several stopped to look, others went about their business unfazed.

Demonstrations are not uncommon in democratic societies -- or even in societies that want to become democratic. They are especially not uncommon in France. Good for getting the word out on strongly-felt issues. Good for making your point.

But there are demonstrations and then there are demonstrations.

I take issue with the demonstrations regarding the Olympic flame because they have become more than a cause, more than getting the word out. They are becoming destructive and offensive.

I will quote one sentence from today's Associated Press article: "On a bus carrying French athletes, one man in a track-suit shed a tear as protesters pelted the vehicle with eggs, bottles and soda cans."

Probably an athlete whose dream had come true when asked to carry the torch. Probably one who'd worked for hours a day for years and then more years to prepare for the competition now just months away. Probably one who wanted to represent his countrymen but now found himself under attack by those countrymen.

That is the wrong kind of demonstration.

And for it to spread throughout the world as the Olympic flame travels to bring the world together in a common celebration would be a travesty.

If you must -- carry a banner, hollar your slogans, cry for freedom of Tibet's oppressed or assistance to Sudan's refugees -- but don't throw eggs.

If we're trying to show concern for distant nations, let's also have compassion for our own countrymen and for those who are working so hard to bring the world together for a few weeks in August.

The grand idea that people from all over the world can come together to joy in excellence is incredibly optimistic. The thrill of watching athletes from countries as big as Russia and as small as Jamaica walk with equal optimism through the opening ceremonies should not be ransomed for this political issue or that one. The points can be made in less destructive ways. Let's be diplomatic. Let's work together.

Let's be good sports.

Head Fake

Just kidding. It's really not spring yet. But if the daffodils can survive a fresh blanket of snow, I guess I can too.

Now you know

It has been a dream off and on now for at least 25 years.

I've wanted to be a newspaper columnist. One of those people who spout off their opinions about this and that next to a little mug shot so you can judge their words by their mugs. My opinions aren't always about politics. More often about people. And life. And natural beauty. And the things you've been reading in this blog.

I first wrote a column 27 years ago when I was expecting my first child and about to retire from reporterhood. I wrote about the importance of chocolate during pregnancy. They ran the story but got the wrong mug. Some man -- we never figured out who -- was pictured in the text about being pregnant and craving chocolate. It was a bad start.

And it was pretty much the finish too.

When my children were little, I wanted to prove to myself that I really had something to say every week, so I sat down regularly to write, with kids here and there and everywhere.... and it worked. The ideas kept coming. I was surrounded by ideas.

Ideas weren't the problem.

Editors were.

There was one at a daily in Oregon who liked my stuff and offered me the job. But before it was signed and certified, she was promoted to a position where she no longer hired columnists.

I tried everyone from the Washington Post to the San Francisco Examiner at times and when nobody gave me the go-ahead I talked my husband out of some investment money and published my favorite columns in a book I called, "In This Together." Because as the saying goes, when your ship hasn't come in, you have to swim out to it.

And when you have something to say, you have to say it.

But then the trick is finding someone who wants to read it. Not my specialty.

I know being a columnist would be hard.

I have "exposure" dreams whenever I'm about to publish something -- dreams that I can't find any privacy. I have a tendency to take any criticism hard, mulling it over and over, hearing it again and again.

Columnists are exposed and they are criticized.

So why is it still a dream? And wouldn't a rational person abandon it?

I don't know. But I can't. Not yet.

So I thank those who read this blog. It is my column.

Thank you to family and friends. And to those who have posted postive comments from Brazil and Croatia and India -- places I couldn't have reached even in a newspaper.

I hope what I have to say has meaning.

I hope somehow it makes the world a better place. Or maybe helps people see the world as a better place.

Because no matter what anyone else says, if a tree falls in a forest -- even if no one is there to hear it, I believe it makes a significant sound.