How to call your Reps - Insider Knowledge #resist #callnow

Copied from a friend:

"Friends! As some of you know, I used to work on Capitol Hill as the person in charge of all the incoming phone calls to my Senator's office. I have some insider tips to make calling your reps easier and quicker.

1. Give your name, city, and zip code, and say "I don't need a response." That way, they can quickly confirm you are a constituent, and that they can tally you down without taking the time to input you into a response database.

2. PLEASE ONLY CALL YOUR OWN REPRESENTATIVES! Your tally will not be marked down unless you can rattle off a city and zip from the state, or are calling from an in-state area code. I know you really want to give Mitch McConnell a piece of your mind, but your call will be ignored unless you can provide a zip from Kentucky. And don't try to make this up; I could often tell who was lying before I even picked up the phone from the caller ID. Exceptions to this are things like Paul Ryan's ACA poll.

3. State the issue, state your position. "I am opposed to a ban on Muslims entering the US." "I am in favor of stricter gun control legislation including background checks." "I am in favor of the Affordable Care Act." That's it. That's all we write down so we can get a tally of who is in favor, who is against. It doesn't matter WHY you hold that opinion. The more people calling, the less detail they write down. Help them out by being simple and direct.

4. Please be nice! The people answering the phones on Capitol Hill already had the hardest job in DC and some of the lowest pay as well, and for a month now their jobs have become absolute murder, with nonstop calls for 9 hours every day. Thank them for their hard work answering the phones, because without them our Senators could not represent us.
What does this sound like?

"Hi, my name is Mark, I'm a constituent from Seattle, zip code 98***, I don't need a response. I am opposed to any ban on Muslims entering the United States and I encourage the Senator to please oppose implementation of any such ban. Thanks for your hard work answering the phones!"
This is how I wish every caller had phrased their message. It makes it easier for the people answering the phones and takes less time and emotion than a long script. I know that you want to say why, but keeping it short and sweet helps the office answer more calls per hour, meaning more people get heard. The bigger the tally, the more powerful our voice.

Also, when you're reading off the same script as 100 other callers that day... well...they can tell.
Pick one issue each day, use this format (I am in favor of _____ or I oppose ______), and call your 2 Senators and 1 Representative on their DC and State Office lines, and you'll be on your way to being heard."

How to get your representatives attention: Town Hall Meetings and Phone Calls

This is long, but very useful information about how to focus our efforts to block harmful legislation and Cabinet appointments. Short version: town hall meetings and phone calls.

"From a high-level staffer for a Senator:
There are two things that all people who care about our country should be doing all the time right now, and they're by far the most important things.

--> You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing.

1. The best thing you can do to be heard and get your congressperson to pay attention is to have face-to-face time - if they have townhalls, go to them. Go to their local offices. If you're in DC, try to find a way to go to an event of theirs. Go to the "mobile offices" that their staff hold periodically (all these times are located on each congressperson's website). When you go, ask questions. A lot of them. And push for answers. The louder and more vocal and present you can be at those the better.

2. But, those in-person events don't happen every day. So, the absolute most important thing that people should be doing every day is calling.
You should make 6 calls a day: 2 each (DC office and your local office) to your 2 Senators & your 1 Representative.
The staffer was very clear that any sort of online contact basically gets immediately ignored, and letters pretty much get thrown in the trash (unless you have a particularly strong emotional story - but even then it's not worth the time it took you to craft that letter).

Calls are what all the congresspeople pay attention to. Every single day, the Senior Staff and the Senator get a report of the 3 most-called-about topics for that day at each of their offices (in DC and local offices), and exactly how many people said what about each of those topics.

They're also sorted by zip code and area code. She said that Republican callers generally outnumber Democrat callers 4-1, and when it's a particular issue that single-issue-voters pay attention to (like gun control, or planned parenthood funding, etc...), it's often closer to 11-1, and that's recently pushed Republican congressmen on the fence to vote with the Republicans. In the last 8 years, Republicans have called, and Democrats haven't.

When you call:
A) When calling the DC office, ask for the Staff member in charge of whatever you're calling about ("Hi, I'd like to speak with the staffer in charge of Healthcare, please") - local offices won't always have specific ones, but they might. If you get transferred to that person, awesome. If you don't, that's ok - ask for their name, and then just keep talking to whoever answered the phone. Don't leave a message (unless the office doesn't pick up at all - then you can...but it's better to talk to the staffer who first answered than leave a message for the specific staffer in charge of your topic).

B) Give them your zip code. They won't always ask for it, but make sure you give it to them, so they can mark it down. Extra points if you live in a zip code that traditionally votes for them, since they'll want to make sure they get/keep your vote.

C) If you can make it personal, make it personal. "I voted for you in the last election and I'm worried/happy/whatever" or "I'm a teacher, and I am appalled by Betsy DeVos," or "as a single mother" or "as a white, middle class woman," or whatever.

D) Pick 1-2 specific things per day to focus on. Don't go down a whole list - they're figuring out what 1-2 topics to mark you down for on their lists. So, focus on 1-2 per day. Ideally something that will be voted on/taken up in the next few days, but it doesn't really matter - even if there's not a vote coming up in the next week, call anyway. It's important that they just keep getting calls.

E) Be clear on what you want - "I'm disappointed that the Senator..." or "I want to thank the Senator for their vote on..." or "I want the Senator to know that voting in _____ way is the wrong decision for our state because..." Don't leave any ambiguity.

F) They may get to know your voice/get sick of you - it doesn't matter. The people answering the phones generally turn over every 6 weeks anyway, so even if they're really sick of you, they'll be gone in 6 weeks.
Put the 6 numbers in your phone (all under P – Politician. An example is McCaskill MO, Politician McCaskill DC, Politician Blunt MO, etc...) which makes it really easy to click down the list each day."

Shock Events

While people are busy protesting, Trump is consolidating political power. Protesters, the media, and politicians are all playing the shock event game. We must focus on the moves Trump is making behind the smoke screen!

From Heather Richardson, professor of History at Boston College:
"I don't like to talk about politics on Facebook-- political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends-- but there is an important non-partisan point to make today.

"What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a "shock event."
Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.

When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.

Last night's Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.

Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one's interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won't like.

I don't know what Bannon is up to-- although I have some guesses-- but because I know Bannon's ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle-- and my friends range pretty widely-- who will benefit from whatever it is.

If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal.

But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.

If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln's strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.

Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it."

COPY AND PASTE on FB. DON"T "SHARE"

#ShockEvent

Copied from Heather Wang

Let The Record Show

http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/01/19/let-the-record-show/

Let the record - and my actions over these next 4 years - show...

"History has been littered with horrible people who did terrible things with power, because too many good people remained silent. And since my fear is that we are surely entering one of those periods in our story, I wanted to make sure that I was recorded for posterity:

I do not believe this man’s actions are normal.
I do not believe he is emotionally stable.
I do not believe he cares about the full, beautiful diversity of America.
I do not believe he respects women.
I do not believe he is pro-life other than his own.
I do not believe the sick and the poor and the hurting matter to him in the slightest.
I do not believe he is a man of faith or integrity or nobility.
I do not believe his concern is for anything outside his reflection in the mirror.

...

And if I prove to be wrong, it will be one of the most joyful errors of my life. I will own these words and if necessary, willingly and gladly admit my misjudgment because it will mean that America is a better and stronger nation, and the world a more peaceful place."

Greece! (Part 1 - Athens)

Back in 2014, my friend Kate and I went to Greece to meet up with a friend of her's, Chris, who was traveling around the world for a year.   Here are some really belated pictures (started the post in 2014...guess I forgot to finish it!)

Oh hey MDI!

Appropriate picture of Switzerland

Geneva

The Alps

The Greek Coast

Arrived in Greece around 5pm, took their metro to the hotel and walked up towards the Plaka (old neighborhood) to find dinner!  Also found our first views of the Acropolis!

Athens Acropolis- the first view!

Acropolis

View over the Plaka to a monestary

We got a bit lost trying to find the restaurant for dinner... the cats were terrible at giving directions

Cats, the Athenian version of DC's rats

Cat and chair sanctuary

Poser

Turn the corner and there's the place we're looking for!

Turn another corner and people eat on the steps!

Ruins, ruins, everywhere...

 Back at the Intercontinental Hotel we headed up to the roof top bar!  (awful location, surrounded by strip clubs, except for the view)

Acropolis in the distance

First full day- exploring the Acropolis and area

In front of an old theater

View towards the sea

Kate, Chris and I

Ran into some Vanderbilt basketball players!

Hope from History

"The future was an industrial, urban America that these people had never, ever imagined. The Civil War was a triumph of the Republican Party, a sectional party with a very clear ideology: Lincoln's ideology. And here it is worth pausing to consider this is one of the few times where a section of the country has achieved such complete dominance over the rest of the country, and seems to have the ability to make its view of the world stand for an American view of the world. It is also one of the few times that a single political party has been so dominant—perhaps in 1804, perhaps in 1932. And it forms a kind of test case of the ability of both a section and a party to shape the country according to the view of the world. And they can't do it—not very easily."

"The Nation in 1865"
Richard White, Stanford University

http://www.humanitiestexas.org/news/articles/before-and-after-civil-war 

Hope for the next four years?

Patrick and Logan

Saturday morning we received the horrible, unbelievable news that late Friday night there was a fire at my cousins Lindsay and Tom's house in Roanoke.  The entire house was destroyed and my cousins's two beautiful boys, Patrick, 10, and Logan, 5, were lost in the fire when the second story collapsed.  Friends of the family who were staying the night all made it out with smoke inhalation and minor burns, and Lindsay and Tom made it out too with smoke inhalation.  They were all driven to Winston-Salem to the hospital there, near where my aunt lives, and spent the night under watch.

Lindsay and Tom lost everything, not only, but most importantly their two boys, but their house, pets, cars, everything.  Lindsay's business was in that house too.  Two fundraising campaigns have been set up to help them get back on their feet, if not emotionally then at least financially.  YouCaring and GoFundMe, which has the best picture of Patrick and Logan.  Your thoughts and prayers are also greatly needed to help Tom, Lindsay and the entire family through this tough time.

Patrick was quiet at times, a very pensive kid sometimes, very curious and smart, highly energetic.  He taught me how to kneeboard last summer at the Lake.  I remember visiting after he was just born while I was in college and Lindsay and I went to make a plate with his footprints on it.  Five years later we did the same thing with Logan.  Those plates hung on the wall in their kitchen.  Logan was a wild child, incredibly bright and always trying to keep up with Patrick, leading to many adventures.  I love those boys!  They were taken to be angels too soon.

It's just unthinkable.  You never expect something to happen to your family, even though you hear about it happening on the news, but sometimes it does.  There is no reason to explain something like this.  Sometimes burdens we have to carry have no reason, we just have to carry them.

Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

When your friend loves lemon cake and strawberry cake, you've got to make cupcakes like that for her bridal shower!

Lemon Cupcakes (adapted from Southern Living)

1 cup vegan butter (like Earth Balance), softened

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs, separated

3 cups cake flour (you can make your own if you don't have it on hand)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon table salt

1 cup soymilk

1 heaping tablespoon lemon zest

2.5 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Shortening or cupcake liners

Preheat oven to 350

In a large bowl beat the vegan butter just like normal butter at medium speed until creamy with a mixer, add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy.  Be patient.  Separate the eggs, add the yolks to the batter one at a time, blending each one in.  Put the whites together in a second large bowl for later.

Mix the flour with baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.  Add a scoop of the flour, then a bit of milk, alternating and blend in on low speed.  Then mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice, I add more than the original recipe for more lemon cake flavor.  

Back to that large bowl of egg whites, clean your mixer, then whip them until firm peaks form.  Add a scoop of the egg whites to the batter and stir in.  Add the rest of the egg whites and then fold into the batter.  I didn't know how to fold in egg whites, so here's a helpful page from the Kitchn or a video to watch how.

Put cupcake liners in the pan then add a scoop of batter to each.  I used a 1/4 cup measure a little less full and it filled them perfectly - only fill each liner 1/2 to 2/3 of the way...lesson learned, these rise like crazy.  Don't worry about smoothing the tops, that happens naturally during baking, but definitely don't drop it down like I did because you want air (the whole reason of adding whipped egg whites).  Bake for 18-20 minutes.  Let cool and make the frosting.

When the cupcakes are cool, use a small knife to core the center about 2/3 of the way down in each cupcake.  Pipe strawberry jam into the center of the cupcake and then use the cored remains to add a bit of cupcake back on top to make frosting easier.

I got the original Strawberry frosting recipe from BethCakes and modified it to be dairy free, which took a couple of attempts.

Attempt One with creamed Earth Balance didn't work.  I creamed the Earth Balance, just like for the cake, then added 2 tbs of strawberry jam like it says, then the puree which I left the solids in and it didn't fully mix together as well as it should have.  There might have been too much puree as I added about a 1/2 cup because I wanted more of a strawberry flavor.  Adding the 2 cups of powdered sugar didn't help.  It looked like this:

That's not going to spread well on top as frosting.  To the trash.

Attempt Two worked much better.  I grabbed the crisco shortening as I know my FMIL (a fantastic baker) uses that to make things dairy free for me sometimes, but to my dismay didn't have a full cup, only about 3/4 of a cup.  So I added that to the bowl (it hadn't been fully cleaned out so there was still lots of strawberry from attempt 1), was in a rush for time to get to the bridal shower these were for, so I threw in enough powdered sugar until it turned into a pink frosting and went with it.

That will work as frosting.

Iced half the cupcakes quickly, cut some strawberry slices to top them with, ran to the grocery store for some store bought icing for the rest as I was super late at that point and headed to the shower.  Luckily, they were a rave.  However, I forgot to take pics in the rush.

Lesson learned: have more crisco on hand and start adding liquids to frostings in small small batches.

Four Things

These are always fun to do, and interesting to find year later...

Four names I go by:
1. Christina
2. Ms. V
3. Ms. Vandenbergh
4. Steiner or Nina *by certain family members

Four things I hate:
1. Disrespect
2. Not taking responsibility for self
3. Cleaning
4. Traffic

Four places I have worked:
1. U-Rec at JMU
2. Science Park Rec Association
3. FCPS
4. College Board/ETS

Four things I love to watch
1. Downton Abbey
2. Jane the Virgin
3. Top Chef
4. Chopped

Four places I have been:
1. Puerto Rico
2. Scotland
3. Iceland
4. Ireland

Four things I am looking forward to:
1. The future with my fiance, soon to be husband
2. Seeing students improve on skills
3. Traveling
4. Spring Break

Four things I love to eat:
1. Mom's Ruby Red Corned Beef
2. Thai Peanut Stir-fry
3. Anything chocolate (dairy-free)
4. Strawberries

Four favorite drinks (not water):
1. Coffee
2. Hot tea with milk
3. A good stout
4. Lemonade in the summer

1-2-3-4 Lemon Cake

A friend made her husband a lemon cake for his birthday that looked fantastic back in December, but of course it was made with real butter (as it should be for anyone's birthday, although I do really appreciate when people have some dessert for me at a party, even if it's just fruit!).  It looked delicious so of course I had to get the recipe and see if I could adapt it, and our department monthly birthday celebration sounded like the right time!

The original recipe is from Smitten Kitchen for the Lemon Layer Cake.  Here's my adapted dairy-free version:

1-2-3-4 Cake
Adapted from several sources: this cake is a classic

This cake gets its name from its proportion of ingredients: 1 cup butter and milk, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups of flour and 4 eggs, and from cupcakes to layers cakes, as a basic, white cake, it does not fail.

Yield: 3 9-inch layers (for the purpose of this cake) or 24 cupcakes or 2 9x9 pans(good to know, eh?)

1 cup (2 sticks) Earth Balance "butter", at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups + 1-2 teaspoons sifted self-rising flour*
1 cup almond or soy milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350°F. Oil & flour the pans.  (Recipes always forget to write in that step!)  Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. It takes a bit longer, but Earth Balance will actually cream.  :-) Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and DF milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla, lemon juice and zest and continue to beat until just mixed. 

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4-inches above counter, then dropping flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure a level cake. I only had one 9x9 pan, oops (guess what I got for Christmas! 9-inch round pans!) so I baked the layers one at a time and the batter stood well on the counter between baking.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (start checking at 15 minutes if you are making cupcakes).

* Self-rising flour has both salt and baking powder in it, but you can make your own at home with the following formula: 1 cup self-rising flour = 1 cup all-purpose flour, minus 2 teaspoons + 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Lemon Curd
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

From the Joy of Cooking: This makes a sensation filling for sponge rolls or an Angel Food Cake. You can also marble it into a cheesecake.

8 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) Earth Balance "butter"
3 lemons, zest grated and juiced

Place the ingredients in the double boiler over boiling water. Don’t let top pan touch the water. Cook and stir until mixture begins to gel or thicken ever-so-slightly. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate it to thicken.

Place layer one on a plate, spread the top with lemon curd and place the second and/or top layer, then another layer of lemon curd.  I then finished it with a layer of classic white vanilla icing from Duncan Hines due to time, but could have made an icing now that I know Earth balance works pretty well for icing.

It was delicious, well enjoyed at work, and the extras were happily brought home to be enjoyed for the next few days.  It was possibly even better a few days later!  (Classic.  Forgot to take a final picture.  I'll just have to make it again!)