Ok, it's time for me to be a grown up blogger and move to a platform that actually lets me wok properly.
I'll keep this Vox blog up as an archive, but I will be moving to WordPress. I'd love you all to stay in touch, we've been friends for a long time!
WrongSide
Word Press Side.
Barf: What the hell was that?
Lonestar: Spaceball 1.
Barf: They've gone to plaid!
— William O. Douglas
Sorry!
The best one yet.
There are few tricks to a good tofu scramble-
Drain, drain, drain the tofu. The drier the tofu, the better it browns. Same with the veggies.
Use a cast iron skillet if you have one. If not, be generous with the oil. It helps crisping the outside of the tofu while keeping the inside juicy and soft.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika (smoked is better)
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1 lb firm tofu, drained and pressed
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch swiss chard, chopped (or spinach)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp lime juice
salt and pepper
Heat the oil in the skillet. Add the onion and saute until softened, a couple of minutes. Then add garlic and saute for another minute. Add the cumin, thyme, oregano, turmeric, paprika and stir around a bit. Then add the mushrooms. Spread them around in the skillet and saute until they brown.
Time for the tofu. I just crumble it in my hands as I add it to the skillet. Both with mushrooms and tofu, stir as little as possible, letting them brown on each side before turning. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chard, nutritional yeast and lime juice towards the end, letting the chard wilt and using the lime juice to scrape all the brown bits off the pan.
Why almost vegan, then? I couldn't resist adding some grated Havarti to the scramble before wrapping it in a tortilla to make the best brunch burrito ever.
Go to a Vanderbilt Basketball game of course!
So far both our men's and ladies teams are undefeated. That includes exhibition games. If our team scores more than 75 we get a free crunchy beef taco from Taco Bell. We save our tickets though so no tacos for us.
Our Lady Dores are the SEC Champions. That is a very big deal in college basketball. They have won 4 of the last 7 tournaments yet they only draw a few thousand spectators per game. The men didn't even make it into the tournament yet they get 15,000 to 20,000 people per game. We have two great teams this year and hope for a great season. Ladies season tickets are $32.00 for the entire season and the same seats for the men's team would cost me over $1,500.00 per season. I have nosebleed seats for the men and they still cost $75.00 per season. If you add in the free tacos for the ladies the seats are about a dollar per game when they win. There is no cheaper form of live entertainment so I strongly recommend supporting your local ladies NCAA team. Take the kids and cheer on the ladies. Our girls are third in attendance nationwide and that is just sad. These kids work their hearts out, miss holidays with their families and probably won't go on to become pros. All their stats are better than the men.
So Go Lady Dores!!!!! You are the best! We want a National Championship this year!
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My second hand copy of Marjorie Lawrence's autobiography Interrupted Melody arrived! It was sitting on my doorstep when I walked down stairs and I was so worried as I ripped open the packaging. I so did not want it to be dirty, or grotty or realy damaged. It wasn't! It was in even better condition than the bookseller had described. I felt like I was handling the past.
and as I browsed the pages - and on page 180...
I felt like I was stepping back in time.
Who had placed the flowers within the book's pages? What did the flowers mean to them? Had they been in vase in the bookshop the day Marjorie signed the book and the book's owner kept them as a memento? Were they flowers given with love? Picked from a garden on a spring evening? Flowers worn as a corsage to a night of opera?
Suddenly, the past came into the present. I felt as though I had embarked on a romantic mystery and that I must go out into the night, mist swirling about me, to discover the story behind the flowers in my book. Was it romance? Regret? Hope? Joy? Sorrow? I can only imagine...I'd like to think that whatever the reason for the flowers being placed within the pages, that it was connected to happiness,,,
The book was superb reading - I read it in one night. I could not put it down. She told of her childhood: the loss of her mother when she was 2, the years spent with her Grandmother, her musical education, running away from home to pursue her dreams, journey to Paris and then to Neg w York, the finding of a love that lasted a life time, her battle with polio and struggling to regain her operatic career. Sometimes she was humble and grateful, at other times she was the great artist, confident and sure of her talent, craving the adulation of her public. I do not follow opera in any way - I do not understand opera at all, but I found this biography of Marjorie Lawrence, to be enthralling. Marjorie reached across the years and made me another one of her devoted fans.
I only wish there had been another chapter...
Dear fellow social workers, women and other important people,
I am writing this post today because I find myself bombarded with US (and other) media about the recent health care reform in America. I must begin this by saying, I am a Canadian chick, who is living in Australia. I am not American. American politics are not mine and I will not be impacted in the same way the American people will be, by the US health reform. However, it is unquestionable that US politics have a 'dribble' effect on the rest of the world, and very often, other countries, (Canada, and Australia, the two that are near and dear to me) are impacted in a sort of precedence setting way.
I belong to a number of social work groups (I am a social worker and clinical therapist by profession) as well as a number of women's groups (I am a woman) and in each of these groups I am being asked to ponder and comment on the health care reform and whether or not I think it serves the interests of social justice and women.
I don't feel able to truly debate American political initiatives. I am not American. Nor do I have the power of voice or vote, so my views have little direct relevance. I do have some brief thoughts however, that I will share. Any health care reform which provides health care as a basic human right to all people, would get my vote. The right to quality healthcare should be universal in my opinion, rich people are not more worthy of health and no one should ever die for lack of money.
Perhaps the US health reform has taken some positive steps in this direction, and if so, I look forward to seeing how that works for the American public.
Where the health reform is woefully falling, in my non-American, female, opinion, is with the Stupak Amendment. I think people need to really investigate the implications this amendment will have for women, children, families. I think we need to carefully consider how any loss of reproductive choice and freedom is a terrifying leap backwards, not just for women, but for all people.
As found in Wikipedia:
Control over reproduction is a basic need and a basic right for all women. Linked as it is to women's health and social status, as well as the powerful social structures of religion, state control and administrative inertia, and private profit, it is from the perspective of poor women that this right can best be understood and affirmed. Women know that childbearing is a social, not a purely personal, phenomenon; nor do we deny that world population trends are likely to exert considerable pressure on resources and institutions by the end of this century. But our bodies have become a pawn in the struggles among states, religions, male heads of households, and private corporations. Programs that do not take the interests of women into account are unlikely to succeed...
I believe we must consider the Stupak Amendment from a reproductive justice position, marrying women's reproductive rights and freedoms with social justice. As a social worker, advocate and woman, I heartily support the following statement, also found in Wikipedia under Reproductive Justice:
For reproductive justice activists, the primary difference between the reproductive rights and health frameworks and the reproductive justice framework is that the rights and health frameworks focus on protecting individual rights and choices, while the reproductive justice framework focuses on broader socioeconomic conditions and bringing about structural change.
From this position, I will and do concern myself with the American Health Reform and will speak to the Stupak Amendment. What is at stake here are not only the individual reproductive rights and freedoms of American women, but also the broader implications it may have on health care, reproductive rights and freedoms, and indeed, social justice - across the world. It is from this place I believe people, women in particular, need to wake up, stand up and get active. It's not okay to say, 'oh well, at least we got some health care reform'. Its not ok to say, 'oh well, we lost reproductive rights and freedoms, we'll just work to get them back'. Women worked their collective asses off to buy us those rights and freedoms. It didn't take them a few decades to get it together - it took CENTURIES. Fighting to prevent the loss of those rights and freedoms, is far more sensible (and timely) than is fighting to have them restored after the fact.
I encourage people to look at and read the RH Reality Check news blog or some of the other feminist blogs doing great work on reporting and covering these issues such as Feminists for Choice.
So what's the Stupak Amendment got to do with me?
My fear is the reverberations from Stupak, will rock my world, all the way over here in Australia.
I wait with fingers crossed and bated breath that America will not allow the essential human rights of women to fall. Because if they can fail in America - they can fail anywhere.
Please Stupak, don't rock my world.
Yes, I know I have been AWOL for quite a while - and I can't really guarantee that I will be back to posting regularly anytime soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of some close encounters of the bushwalking kind (from last weekend when my son and I went for an early morning walk before the rest of the bushwalking hordes started scaring everything into hiding).
As well as these creatures, we also saw a swamp wallaby but it was too far away to photograph. I had to get the lizards identified later - they are lace monitors (also known as tree goannas). The education officer from the park also said we were very lucky to see the echidna as they are notoriously shy. I have only ever seen echidnas in the wild three times in my life and twice have been while walking with my son.
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