We celebrated the fourth of July holiday in Carrollwood this year with friends from the Hillel School the Weiner, Ray and Sheer families. The kids rode their festively decorated bicycles in the parade and then parked them at the shore of Lake Carrollwood.
Then we all enjoyed ice-cold watermelon while watching the ski show.
July 4th Ski Show on Lake Carrollwood
Afterwards we enjoyed a holiday cook-out party at Dr. Sheer’s lovely home overlooking the lake. The kids moved seamlessly between swimming in the pool to wwII games to playing pool. Finally we all headed to our respective homes after sunset, happy and satisfied.
Weiner, Ray, Leib and Sheer Kids Enjoy July 4th Party
1. Mark Leib
2. Jeremy Leib
3. beach weekends with #1 & #2
4. jagermeister
5. Emily Dickenson
6. our Raintree house
7. Hillel School of Tampa
8. Billy Collins
9. Harriet/Trish Leib
10. living in the internet age
11. sandy little shoes
12. garlic/rosemary/olive oil roasted vegetables
13. clean air & water
14. writers living in Temple Terrace/Greg Neri
15. my mother and father
16. Florida Healthy Kids Insurance
17. tai-chi
18. sound of frogs in our lake after it rains
19. good health
20. Studio@620
21. everything about my past life
22. WMNF
23. my little sister Lauren Brannon
24. Cafe Kili
25. good health of husband&son
26. Mary’s new baby girl
27. playing in the rain on the beach with Jeremy
28. kosher meat
29. Marla Grant
30. Jim Teixeira
31. Jeremy’s toothless grin
32. Miki
33. Paralounge Drum Festival
34. Virginia Woolf
35. my laptop computer
36. sound of beach waves
37. Brian Lau
38. Lesley Spencer
39. Micah
40. Phoebe
41. Jeremy sitting quietly
42. Mark’s new play about the holocaust “A River in the Desert”
43. opportunities to publish
44. cloud formations
45. the smell of lavender
46. Tampa Day Summer Camp
47. my hair stylist - julie
48. Papande Newman - creator of MitzvahMom image
Tim Russert was beloved and admired for all the right reasons - his contribution to journalism, the quality of his friendships and the love he had for his family. He showed us what a life well lived looks like. I’m grateful to Russert for what I learned about politics during this unique primary season and send out a thank-you to his family and friends for sharing your stories with us who were not fortunate enough to know him personally.
Is a spider an insect? In this video from today’s program at Brooker Creek Preserve, education staffer April provides an answer. Once we filled several containers with bugs, we went back to the education center classroom to examine them.
What is an insect?
This free program for families lasted about an hour and a half and included classroom discussion and time outside catching insects. After the program ended we walked on the trails and visited the Brooker Creek Preserve exhibit hall to play with the interactive exhibits. We had a great time and would recommend the programs like this to families interested in Florida’s natural history.
The tooth fairy visited our house last night. Jeremy lost his second front tooth at gymnastics camp yesterday. In this video I talk about an exchange we had as he told the story about how it happened with family friends. As he spoke he drifted into a free association as young children will do and the subject of race came up. For more MitzvahMom videos visit my YouTube website.
In this video I talk to parents about where kids are connecting online and give website recommendations. For more MitzvahMom videos on being involved in positive and productive ways in the online lives of kids visit the MitzvahMom YouTube site.
Media coverage is often politically motivated or influenced by powerful people like Rupert Murdock. This article by Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is no exception. As a columnist for Bloomberg News, Hasset makes the case that current coverage of economic data pointing to recession favors Obama’s bid for the presidency. On the other hand, many argue that economic measurements favor corporations and the wealthy at a time when the majority of individuals and small businesses struggle disproportionately.
Responses to what we believe about the present and future state of the economy can be colorful and highly subjective. Paranoid? Then our economic system is manipulated by a powerful banking system, multi-national corporations and foreign governments. Believe the end of time is coming? Read the book of Revelations to find clues about how the digital economy may be a tool of the antichrist (think of the number 666 in a digital chip embedded on your forehead). Depressed? No one is in control and we’re all doomed.
Mark and Jeremy and I attended Congregation Or Ahavah’s dedication ceremony today at the Jewish Community Center in memory of Rabbi Theodore Brod and in honor of Freda Brod. The dedication gave us the chance to do the last of the 613 mitzvoth, to write a Sefer Torah. We lined up to inscribe a letter on the Torah scroll and afterward JCC Director Cathy Gardner wrote in calligraphy our names on a lovely certificate commemorating the occasion.
Rabbi and Freda Brod’s Children and Grandchildren Bring in the Torah:
It was a pleasure to hear Eldra Solomon, Rabbi and Freda’s daughter, talk about the Brod legacy and of their efforts over many years to build the Tampa Jewish community. Rabbi performed my conversion almost 20 years ago and then married Mark and I thirteen years ago. We attended many of the renown Brod Passover Seders and Yom Kipper break-the-fast gatherings.
The Brod’s were generous in opening their doors to anyone who wanted to belong to the Jewish community. He will be remembered for all his hard work as will Freda. Particularly Freda is beloved for her kind and loving ways. She is a friend to the good and to the friendless alike - fulfilling the calling of a Rabbi’s wife where no one is excluded from her beneficence. She is a treasure who is much loved and appreciated by all.
So many articles and talk about parenting are at best silly claptrap and at worst, self-serving rambles by people convinced of their superior knowledge and skills. This one has a child in law school, that one in a prestigious prep school. We must endure with good grace their golden droppings as they strut and fluff atop a nest feathered by their children’s accomplishments. It’s tiresome to be in the company of such a person who never tires of the smell of their proven theories.
The good news is the world is filled with the wise and the foolish. I happened to be leafing through Natural Awakenings, a free health magazine published locally and found one of the most helpful articles on parenting by Thomas Moore I’ve read recently. In college I enjoyed reading his book Care of the Soul (not to be confused with Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation).
Moore writes personally, sharing a story about when his daughter is diagnosed with an autoimmune illness. He connects spirituality with parenting and the ways it can, for those who are alert, remove false virtue and increase faith. I particularly share his idea of the end goal: to help a child become a thoughtful, engaged adult. For me and my parenting partner it’s a goal worthy of the effort.
Karl Rove from his new perch on Fox News promoted his Wall Street Journal op-ed today. Even while noting that politics had become “hi-tech with sophisticated databases, the Internet, TV ads, focus groups and polls,” he reached back to Abraham Lincoln’s bid for the White House to establish some fundamentals.
Rove quotes Lincoln as saying to his Whig campaign committee: make a list of voters, figure out who they would vote for, have someone talk to the undecided voters by someone they respect and on Election Day, get them to the polls.
Rove’s analysis:
Obama
PROS
*excellent community organizing by energetic supporters
*internet savvy - fundraising and communicating with supporters
*Democrats finally have a single national database (10 years after the GOP!)
Obama CONS
*don’t have breathless college students call undecided voters, who will often be mature adults
*big challenges with blue-collar households, slipping in polls with white women and low Latino support
*to date in key battleground states has 4 states each with a state chairman and 8 without
*stumbling across nomination finish line with major challenges to unite the party
McCain PROS
*does better among Independents and Democrats than any other Republican
*winning 41% of the Hispanic vote to Obama’s 34%
*GOP’s Victory Committee capable of the sophisticated “microtargeted” database and detailed planning
*to date in key battleground states has 9 states each with a state chairman and 3 without
McCain CONS
*in his political history hasn’t shown much regard for organization, seeming dismissive of the arduous mechanics
*has an “enthusiasm deficit” with grassroots GOP activists
*has no grassroots groups to match the Democrats outside of the National Rifle Association and Right to Life
*needs to win the working class voters (Catholic’s in particular0 and older white women
*running in a political environment that favors Democrats
Rove predicts that organization will be the factor that provides the winning margin in the fall. I’ll add that I’m hearing from Republican friends that they’ll stay home before voting for McCain and from some Democrats that they’ll vote for McCain over Obama. Buckle your seatbelts, this is going to be an election for the history books!
