Sprung

Two happy girls. Happy because they don't tune into weather forecasts perhaps. It's cold and rainy here today. There's talk of the S word falling from the sky tonight. All we can do is wait and see. Spring is lodging here, but we can't seem to locate our esteemed guest for the honorary dinner announcing her arrival.

Willa's just turned three and Sylvia will be six in a week and a half. My how time flies. Seems like just yesterday I was growing my hair and listening to the Grateful Dead. We'll be shipping Mom off in a couple of days for a vacation with friends in NYC. It's a long weekend with Dad coming up. We did this same thing last year. I'm really looking forward to it.

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Here's an interesting tidbit on "Made in America." It has to do with cars, but what other topic strikes so close to we Americans' hearts? Honda exports to 30 countries from assembly plants in the US. Hmm ... this topic could be more complex than it sounds. After all, Honda's not an American company.

For some reason the adamant insistence of some people to "Buy American" has always bothered me. It's a protectionist mentality that has little basis in practicality or sustainability. We're better off in our buying decisions to support locally owned businesses as much as possible and to extrapolate downward to purchasing locally sourced products from food to bath soap.

The "Buy American" argument is often waged at the corporate-produced level of cars. It presumes power is in the hands of large corporations. And I think we all have plenty of evidence that equation gets balanced at the expense of everyday workers and taxpayers.