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Romania-Mockingbird Mash-up

Part One

Eustacia arrived home safely from Romania last night. Yay! We're so happy to have her back. Her re-entry adjustment is going to be difficult, although she's got her junior year in college to plan for with just two and a half weeks to go before that begins.

She brought home lots of pictures, and I borrowed a few. Here:

This is the road sign at the turn off for Pro Vita, which sits just at the edge of Valea Screzii.

Here, Lea (another volunteer) and I are setting up the art show featuring the kids' craft work.

This is what happened when we tried to drive up to the sheepfold after too much rain. The Landrover got stuck, and the jeep had to come to the rescue and then take us up to meet the shepherds. The men doing all the work are Mihail and Gabriel, sons of Father Tanase who founded Pro Vita.

And here we are in the shepherds' hut sampling the cheese and pollenta—dirt floor, canvas walls, great cheese.

Part Two

I post my weekly columns at Open Salon just to give them a little more coverage than Small Town Newspaper can provide, and the most recent one about To Kill A Mockingbird made the Editor's Pick and was featured on the front page of the site—I swear, the honor gave me a little buzz. Here's a snapshot of my screen that day, which I captured because I was so excited:

I followed the online comments all day, both at Open Salon and at Small Town Newspaper, and here's what happened: at Salon, 35 or so people wrote in to discuss the book, to talk about their impressions of Atticus and the symbolism of Boo Radley and how the film differed from the original story. It was great to see how much people have thought about this American classic. In contrast, 70 people commented at the newspaper site. Seventy. I'd be impressed except of those 70, only three or four said anything at all about To Kill A Mockingbird. The rest went back and forth calling each other "racist" for not liking Obama or the equivalent of "anti-Christ" for liking him. It was shameful.

I have wondered if it's appropriate for me to post these columns on another site, but because I don't get paid for them, I can do whatever I choose with them. I'm glad I've got Open Salon as an option, because without it, I'd pull my hair out and beat myself over the head with a stick.

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