Diversity in Congress

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/buddhist-hindu-congress-mazie-hirono-tulsi-gabbard_n_2088939.html

The previous ^^ is a link to an article that i think shows just how far our country has come, and how it continues to move in a positive direction every day.

I was raised in a very Christian family. My grandfather on my father's side was a Southern Baptist minister, and his father-in-law, my great grandfather, was a Southern Baptist minister also. I went to church through my whole childhood, and have studied the Bible. I do not currently identify as Baptist, mainly because it is a very unaccepting denomination. Unaccepting of other religions and often unaccepting of other races, and certainly unaccepting of other lifestyles. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to  bash it, I just don't believe my personal faith is quite in line with it. But one thing I DO believe is that everyone else has a the right to believe what they want to.

Now, in the recent election, a senator and representative from Hawaii were just elected. They were both women, and the were Hindu and Buddhist. How amazing is that! Democrat Mazie Hirono, Buddhist, and  Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, Hindu, are now going to be representing this amazing country. I hope one day our country will see a day where people of different colors, backgrounds, and religions maybe outnumber old, white Christians, and all join together to represent all the values this country expresses in the Constitution, as a people, and to the world. Once again, don't get me wrong, i have NOTHING against Christians at all...but that is not what our country is! According to the census bureau (2011), only 63.4% of the country's population is white non-Hispanic. So why is this not parallelled in our representation?  Hopefully it will be soon.

Our country is a country full of different people, from different religions, and different backgrounds. Our congress should represent as such.

Why I Eat the Plums

I am an English Education major. Therefore, I will be teaching poetry and novels to teenagers for much of my life. Poetry is very rarely any one's favorite subject, and it's not my favorite either. To me, poetry requires too much thinking. Granted, sometimes thinking and finding meaning in a poem can be very rewarding, but I tend to be a pretty straightforward person. I say how I feel, and I'm not very cryptic. Poetry is often the opposite. It is cryptic, roundabout, and indirect. So reading poetry is a bit of a pleasureless task for me--most of the time.

My blog is named Eating the Plums in the Icebox because I recently read a poem (which is above my "about me")named "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams. It is a poem derived from a note he wrote to his family. see, WCW was a working man. He wasn't a professional poet. He didn't make a career out of writing poetry like T.S. Eliot did. He was a man who went to work before his family woke up most days, and came home when they were already in bed. So the way I picture it, he came home one night, hungry, and saw these plums his wife had. And he ate them. He wrote her an apologetic note, and upon seeing it later, decided it would make a pretty neat poem. and BAM! a poem. Now, this is all supposition, but I would be willing to wager something similar happened. So this is now a pretty decently famous poem. Famous enough, at least, for us to read it in college. This simple poem is beautiful. It's not complicated or tricky. It's a simple apology. So why can't other things in life be perceived as equally beautiful?