Today is Veteran’s Day.

Those who have served in our wars since 1776 have risked everything for the good of others.

In our all volunteer forces of today, it is just a few who are willing to serve.

Thank you to our veterans and to those who serve today.

Above you see a sultry Pilgrim holding a Thanksgiving Turkey.

She’s going to have that turkey beheaded and served up for dinner.

What was the role of women in Colonial Massachusetts and Colonial New England?

From American Colonies—The Settling Of North America by Alan Taylor—

“It took a family to cope with the diverse and constant demands of building and maintaining a farm in New England. English culture expected all adults to marry and divided their labors into male and female responsibilities. Men conducted the heaviest work, including clearing, constructing, tending the livestock, harvesting the hay, and cultivating the grain crops. Women maintained the home and its nearby garden, cared for the numerous children, made clothing and soap, and prepared and preserved foods, including butter, eggs and cheese. But when a husband was away or incapacitated, the wife also had to assume his labors, taking the role of  ” deputy husband” until he returned or recovered….The New English understood marriage as both romantic and economic. Husband and wife were supposed to be both temperamentally and financially compatible…As in the mother country, New English men monopolized legal authority, landownership and political rights….In all this, New England simply replicated the gender hierarchy of the mother country. More noteworthy are the modest ways in which the Puritan faith provided a bit more authority, protection, and respect for women in New England than they enjoyed in the Chesapeake or the old England. … Above all, Puritanism preached the  importance of love and mutual respect as the foundations of Christian marriage.”

American Colonies is a great book.

 Take the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday to learn more about our colonial origins.

A great source to learn this history is the blog History of American Women.

Here is an old car that is pulled up to the Metabolife booth.

The booth does not appear to be well-attended.

The driver of the car must be out looking for the person who should be in the booth.

When you are out driving around, you never know what you will see.

I took this picture while out driving around.

I don’t know that I have ever seen a Metabolife booth. I don’t really even know what Metabolife is—Though I’m not fully certain one can get the things they need in life from a booth.

Maybe you will find the things you need in a library.

I located a Salon article where Bill Bradley and his wife walked past a Metabolife booth in New Hampshire in 1999 when Senator Bradley was seeking the 2000 Democratic Presidential nomination.

From the article—Ernestine Bradley is much more charismatic on the stump than her terse hubby. Bradley was typically mellow as he careened past the Metabolife booth and Perfumania while Ernestine bubbled to voters, “Hi! You going to vote? I hope so. I hope you vote for the right guy! I’m the wife.”

I guess that article is proof that these booths did once exist.

If you know what kind of car that is, please leave a comment.

A few days ago Texas Liberal registered the 5000th comment since the blog started in July of 2006.

I was glad to note this milestone. Comments mean that readers are engaged and feel  you have written something that merits a response.

I’d like to thank Bill, Sarah V. and Newton for many of these comments in recent months. I’d like to thank (almost) everybody who has left a comment on the blog.

There is one recent comment  I would like to note as a very good comment. It was from a blog reader named Patricia.

In February of 2008, I wrote what was something of a throwaway post that involved a picture of a houseboat in India and 8 words of text. I just needed to get something up on the blog for the day.

Here is the link to that post.

As simple and silly as the post was, it has become the 8th most viewed post of the 1,600 I’ve run on the blog. It has gained more than 5,600 page views.

So last June I asked people who were reading the post why it was they were reading the post.  Here is a response I got from Patricia—

‘‘Hi there! You asked why your boat clip is getting so much attention. Well, I can’t speak for others, but I’m a hermit hunting for hermitage options. I don’t know anything about boats, but I had a crazy thought recently that I could build a peddle houseboat, so now I’m here… I’m sure there’s a reason why it probably hasn’t been done! I’ll find out one way or another! The little boat shown there is a pretty clever design though.~Blessings”

You just can’t beat that. Patricia wants to build a peddle-powered houseboat so she can live a life as a hermit. That seems like a worthwhile pursuit in my view.

I’m sorry my post did not have the information Patricia was seeking.

I am glad and appreciative though that people continue to read and respond to the blog.

People often say there is no difference between the two major political parties in our country.

The health care vote in the House last night shows that this is not the case.

While counting on Democrats can be frustrating for liberals, think of the difference it will make in people’s lives to have greater access to health insurance.

Great legislation like Social Security or Voting Rights comes along only so often. But when it does arrive, it helps people for years and years.

Liberals rarely have the upperhand in our Federal Government. Yet the impact of liberal legislation is lasting.

We were promised hope and change by Mr. Obama. In this very important matter of health care reform, hope and change is exactly what appears to be on the way.

Below is a picture I took of the electronic ballot box I used to vote in our Houston city elections earlier this week.

If you look, you see that one can vote in English, Spanish or Vietnamese. These are the options we have here in Harris County.

If English is our so-called official language, how come we can vote in languages other than English? How come we can do so even here in Texas?

It doesn’t hurt anything to let people vote in Spanish or Vietnamese.

All people are our fellows.

The painting in this post was completed by a young cancer patient at the M.D Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

It is a Thanksgiving card. You can go to the M.D Anderson web site and buy this card and other things made by young people with cancer.

In this painting, I like the presence of some color on the leaves on the tree, and I like the red barn. I also like the bleakness of the scene. It is clearly a cold late autumn day.

The color offers some hope, but there is only so much hope.

I bought a pack of these cards at the M.D Anderson store here in Houston. I’ve decided to start writing some letters and cards to folks and I’m going to start with this illustration of a barn in autumn.

I read a brief story today that Kelloggs will stop making claims on cereal boxes about boosts to the immune system offered by consuming Kelloggs’ products.

This is in response to suggestions that eating cereal will not prevent your child from getting swine flu.

So no—Eating Cocoa Krispies—seen below—is not the path to health for children or for yourself.

The painting in this post is by an artist named Richard Diebenkorn. I’m sorry,but I don’t have the title of the painting.

One thing I like about this painting is the emotional distance evident between the two people while they are so clearly in each other’s presence.

A lot of times in life I talk to people I feel very distant from–Yet I can’t indicate the distance I feel.

The scene appears negative, but it shows a level of estrangement I wish I could show more often.

The woman in the picture apears on the defensive. She is standing and holding her arm while the man is sitting.

Yet it is likely that the man has caused whatever the problem is here. I hope the woman can recover the upper hand.

There is only one chair in the room that we can see. Should he not offer it to the woman? He lacks the confidence in whatever he is asserting to give up the physical advantage of having the one chair. The woman is totally revealed in front of him.

Richard Diebenkorn lived from 1922 until 1993. He is worth looking up and learning more about.

Dr. Richard Murray is a University of Houston political science professor who doubles as a blogger on local politics.

Below is the link to his blog at the web home of Channel 13 in Houston.

http://prof13.abc13.com/

Dr. Murray knows a lot about local politics. However, he has won the award for the dumbest comment about the 2009 Houston city elections.

This is an award that I’ve just made up.

Asked by the Houston Chronicle about low turnout in the 2009 city election, Dr. Murray said the following—

“…When the electorate shrinks, you get people who know more about the issues and about individual candidates in particular….”

Campaigns that address issues voters care about? Local political parties that work hard to generate turnout? An electorate educated in our schools about the importance of civic involvement? Elected officials who do more than serve the needs of the wealthy?

Nope—Let’s just winnow down the voter pool to the few who pass Dr. Murray’s very limited conception of who is a worthy voter.

The road to Hell will be paved by experts and conventional wisdom.

Just a few quick thoughts on Houston’s city elections yesterday.

1. I’m glad Annise Parker has made the runoff for Mayor. I hope that Ms. Parker uses this new round of elections to more sharply define herself from her opposition than she did in the general election.

80% of voters yesterday chose a Democrat to serve as Mayor of Houston. Ms Parker has a new chance to articulate a vision of Houston that is not just racially and socially inclusive, but fully economically inclusive as well.

2. I’m not going to vote for a City Controller who has not paid all his taxes. I won’t vote the Republican in the race. But nor will I vote for Ronald Green.

If my not voting for Mr. Green helps elect the Republican—So be it.

A Democrat running to watch over our city finances should pay his taxes.

3. I wish the Harris County Democratic Party would do something to generate turnout in the runoff. Let’s begin to set the stage for Democratic victories in Harris County in 2010.

Life is more like a parliamentary democracy than a presidential system.

Life is like a parliamentary system where there is no consistent majority to be won on Election Day.

What we must try to do is cobble together a coalition of friends and family to be able to complete our term of life.

It is a coalition we have to bust our asses to maintain. If the coalition falls apart, then maybe we as individuals will fall apart.

I work hard to maintain my coalition of people in life.

Vanity compels me to tell you that I am reading the 1095 page A New Literary History Of America.

This egoism can’t surprise you as blogging itself is an act of vanity.

As you can see from the picture below, A Literary History is a larger book than Last Train To Memphis— The Rise Of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick, and the 2010 The New York Times Almanac.

A Literary History has been well- reviewed. I’d link to a review if I knew how to make links when blogging with my iPhone while my computer us busted.

A Literary History is a collection of essays. They range in time from the first point the word America appeared on a map–that was in 1507—up to Barack Obama’s election last year.

I’m on page 113 at the moment. The next essay is about John Adams defending the Constitution.

The essays tell the history of the nation by examining, among other things, books, poems, art, political essays and sermons.

These writings and comunucations are considered, and then are connected to some larger aspect of American history,or some larger characteristic or trait of the American makeup.

There are around 225 esays in the book. If one bores you it will end soon enough.

Nothing had bored me yet in A Literary History. The topics are eclectic and often creative while remaining relevant.

It may be that telling you I’m reading a 1095 page book is snobby, but the other side is that I believe people have a far greater capacity to understand complex things than they realize.

Go get yourself something new and interesting to read. Suggest to someone you value that they do the same. Life is too short not to learn and understand as much as we can in the time we have.

Tuesday, November 3 is Election Day in Houston.

There are three credible candidates for Mayor of Houston on the ballot. No candidate is likely to win a majority on Election Day. This being the case, there will be a runoff election within the next few weeks.

Each of the three leading candidates is a Democrat. Each of the three has actively sought the support of Republican voters in Houston.

In doing this, each candidate has let down people who could use help in Houston. The Republican Party and it’s voters are so far away from the needs and aspirations of urban America that you can’t appeal to Republican core supporters without losing your way.

This said, elections are about the future. There has to be a better future. Houston labors under a long history of economic, racial, ethnic and environmental injustice. The candidates for Mayor of Houston did not make this history. We can’t simply resign ourselves to assuming that the future will be like the past.

My best bet for Mayor of Houston is City Controller Annise Parker.

Ms. Parker has worked to bring banking services to the poor in Houston. She had supported Houston janitors in efforts to gain better wages and benefits. She has a personal history of fighting for basic human rights in her efforts for the rights of gay folks in Houston.

I don’t harbor any illusion that Ms. Parker will find courage as Mayor that she has lacked as a candidate for Mayor. Houston’s history suggests she will pursue moderate progress at best while remaining silent about large-scale social wrongs.

Still–You never know. I’m going to roll the dice tomorrow and vote for Annise Parker for Mayor of Houston.

The photo in this post is of the Illinois prairie area of the Chicago Botanical Garden.

I took this picture last August.

These gardens were like some kind of paradise. I’m certain they are nice in the fall and even in the winter.

If I were you—and in a sense I am you because we are all connected—I’d find a nice place to take a walk. Either by yourself or with someone else.

Slow down and take a walk. Anybody looking for you to hurry up is likely looking to make a buck off you or trying to fool you in some manner.