Zippy’s Java Lounge owner Marilyn Rosenberg (center) visits with customers and friends Friday, a day before she leaves for the Mayo Clinic for treatment of a rare genetic disorder. At right, 2-year-old Elvis Rockwell covers the eyes of his mother, Ali Rockwell, entertaining Nicole Greenwald (left), Vernon Huffman, Mark Nagel and Zippy the Dalmatian.
This is a story about a community I’m very proud to be part of.
amm
EVERETT — Marilyn Rosenberg took the equity out of her house in the Riverside neighborhood to open Zippy’s Java Lounge because there were no hangouts in town that fit her free-spirited style.
She had no experience running a cafe. Family members said she was crazy for going out on a limb.
More than two years later, her business sense and heart for community have helped turn the java joint named after her purebred Dalmatian into a vibrant downtown gathering place for young students, middle-aged professionals and old hippies.
Now that an illness is forcing Rosenberg, the cafe’s sole proprietor, to take time off, a group of friends and loyal customers are volunteering to wash dishes and sweep floors to help keep the doors open.
“I’m optimistic about the future,” said Rosenberg, 43, a native of Golden Valley, Minn., a suburb five miles west of downtown Minneapolis. “I grew up believing that you can do what you want and never thinking that someone can stop you.”
It’s that can-do spirit that endears her to people like Kira Williams, owner of Insight Massage Studio and Spa on Hewitt Avenue, who is Rosenberg’s jogging partner.
“She’s a jill-of-all-trades and a great mentor,” Williams said. “I’m proud to share the street with her.”
Williams is one of about a dozen people who say they will pitch in while Rosenberg is at the Mayo Clinic undergoing treatments for a cluster of precancerous polyps, which may be an indication that she has Gardner Syndrome, a rare, life-threatening condition that runs in her family. She may have part of her colon removed, but she said she feels lucky because the abnormal growths were discovered early.
She is scheduled to leave for the world-renowned medical practice in Rochester, Minn., today.
After spending a decade selling art at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, a love of horseback riding brought Rosenberg to Snohomish County. She eventually bought a house here and an Arabian-quarter horse cross named “Mojo,” which she keeps at a stable on Ebey Island.
She’s obsessive about recycling. She has a place where people can drop off old grocery bags, and her cafe sells recycled goods, such as knit sacks a local artist has made using old plastic bags. She even keeps a worm bin to compost food scraps near a bank of computers at the rear of the shop. It doesn’t smell, she points out, and every month it produces 10 pounds of rich worm castings that she uses to fertilize her garden at home.
Rosenberg is a founding member of Green Everett, a group that focuses on environmental sustainability issues, including renewable energy and reducing waste and household pollution.
The cafe with a tall ceiling, brick walls, comfortable couches and worn wooden floors also has a lending library with a wide-ranging collection of titles such as “Courage to Create,” “Non Violent Soldier of Islam” and “The Alchemist.”
For artists who sell and display their paintings, musicians and poets who perform, and environmental activists who frequently hold meetings, Zippy’s is a place where they feel at home.
It is that connection that has compelled people to help Zippy’s stay open.
“I sweep a mean floor,” saidChad Shue, a blogger and liberal activist whose daughter is helping Rosenberg transcribe recipes. Shue’s wife bought an apron and started washing dishes at the cafe last week.
“It’s become progressive central and Marilyn is the focal point,” said Jackie Minchew, a middle school music teacher who plans, with his wife, to wash dishes at Zippy’s until Rosenberg returns.
Minchew, who ran a failed bid for Everett City Council last year, held his campaign kickoff party at Zippy’s. He has also played there with his three-piece folk guitar band the Three Chord Progressives, which includes Shue and Luis Moscoso, secretary of the state Democratic Central Committee.
Rosenberg said the outpouring of support was a surprise and has lifted a burden. One customer even offered to walk Zippy, the dog, for her.
“They almost started making lists for me,” she said. “It created a warm spot in my heart.”
You buy a car or an electrical appliance and it comes with this warning label:
This product is perfectly safe- HOWEVER there is an outside chance it could- for no reason burst into flames and kill you. Buy it anyway though because the chances are very small it will happen TO YOU.
So now we must ask for the health and safety of anyone who eats beef: Have the actions of some people who like to torture animals on their way to the slaughter house and this mega industry endangered at least ONE of us?
Consider it:
They’ve slapped a warning label on every piece of beef processed at their plant and they tell YOU not to worry because it probably won’t effect YOU.
Oh sure, I’m so glad to know that – now I’m ready to go out and eat a big juicy steak or burger because:
what they did could have endangered my friends or family.
BUT NOT ME!
You jerks.
The video of how they treated those animals have put me off beef for the rest of my life- and this comment alone sealed the deal:
“On the one hand, I’m glad that the recall is taking place. On the other, it’s somewhat disturbing, given that obviously much of this food has already been eaten,” said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union. “It’s really closing the barn door after the cows left.”
Those types of hauntings are more terrifying then any monster movie, book or play or true life story to ever be shared around a campfire.
Yesterday I saw this woman standing by her car at the side of the road.
The car was beat up and she was wearing a sweat outfit and her hair was in a pony tail and as my bus sped by I noticed that not one single car slowed down.
She was waving her arms and I saw the look on her face- she wasn’t expecting anyone too.
I wondered if she had been taller or skinnier or if her hair wasn’t brown and had she dressed better how many cars would have at least tried to not hit her as they drove by.
But I know the answer to that one.
Back in the 80’s both me and my friend drove the same kind of car which meant that they had the same sort of problems
My friend was going around this corner when her fuel pump died and she stalled right there on the turn next to a gas station.
My friend who was tall, and skinny AND a model ( and boy you could tell from a hundred feet away she was one of the most beautiful women in the world ) and as gets out of her car about a dozen ( well, okay three ) guys practically kill themselves running across the lot to help her.
Not only do they fix the fuel pump they fix her radio, vacuum her car and fix the lock on the trunk.
So about a month later I’m taking the same turn and something shorts out in my electrical system just as I’m passing the same gas station.
I get out and push the car the rest of the way into the gas station when this guy walks up to me and says, ” If you don’t get this thing out of here in the next five minutes I’m calling a tow truck.”
I try to tell him I’m going to call my boyfriend who has a truck and can tow me and he says, ” get this thing out of here NOW or we’re gonna start charging you a storage fee and that’s 100.00″
So I ask if someone can help me push it next door at least because the traffic was bad and I couldn’t see myself pushing this thing fast enough when he says, ” listen fat ass, get this thing out of here NOW.”
Then he calls over his shoulder as he walks away ” move it you ugly bitch or start writing a check.”
The Village Elders Have Spoken- and it DOES count if they
were wearing
tye dyed t-shirts when they do it.
Besides
I wore a t-shirt with a dancing skeleton on it and my lucky bracelet with little silver bone charms on it when I ran our caucus sight and people were good with that…after all, they had more important things to think about.
Look at this hip cat. It’s Barack ‘Barry’ Obama. His yearbook photo was always gonna be the best lookin’. I mean, can you imagine Hillary Clinton‘s thanking “the Choom Gang”? I bet the Chooms were a local group who specialised in acid fonnnk! Or they sounded like Billy Ocean. Either way, Baz had an afro, and afros look cool.
Now, to further his cool (imagined or otherwise), The Grateful Dead are saying that Barack Obama embodies political hope which has been absent in the US since Robert Kennedyhad his head popped back and to the left.
The Dead like Barry Obama so much that they got back together on Monday to play a gig and get the back of the presidential candidate.Read over for some serious stuff… glib asides… and a brand new conspiracy theory…
“Every few generations a guy like this comes along,” Dead drummer Mickey Hart told a news conference. “It seems like desperate times and we’re desperate people.”
Indeed.
It can’t be easy livin’ in a country with a chimp and a big red button at the helm. Even though I know virtually nothing about American politics, it does seem that the damage done by Bush almost certainly ensures a Democrat win.
Even though that’s not amazingly interesting, it does point toward a first. America may be on the verge of gettin’ their first woman prez, or their first black prez. Interesting times.
So, the fact that the Grateful Dead have hopped on board in no surprise at all.
Bob Weir of the band (not The Band… don’t get ’em confused) said; “The last time hope was in the air, it was ended by a bullet (referring to JFK).”
Bassist Phil Lesh said he met Obama, who told him he has some Grateful Dead songs on his MP3 player. Bet he owns American Beauty and likes Box Of Rain best.Anyway, as tenuous as the link to music is, I still thought I’d tell yer about all this.
Oh. And the conspiracy theory… ( deleted by amm at I.B go ahead and put in your own)
Robert Sloan: You have to leave here. There’s no room, there’s no place. Do you understand that?
Martin Sloan: I see that now, but I don’t understand. Why not?
Robert Sloan: I guess because we only get one chance. Maybe there’s only one summer to every customer… That little boy, the one I know – the one who belongs here – this is his summer, just as it was yours once. Don’t make him share it.
Martin Sloan: Alright.
Robert Sloan: Martin, is it so bad where you’re from?
Martin Sloan: I thought so, Pop. I’ve been living on a dead run and I was tired. And one day I knew I had to come back here. I had to get on the merry-go-round and listen to a band concert. I had to stop and breathe, and close my eyes and smell, and listen.
Robert Sloan: I guess we all want that. Maybe when you go back, Martin, you’ll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are. Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right place. You’ve been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead.
I attended the 2004 Democratic National Convention
and
heard this speech.
Today here in Washington State
I’m going to
have the
Audacity TO Hope
2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address
delivered 27 July 2004, Fleet Center, Boston
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dick Durbin. You make us all proud.
On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, Land of Lincoln, let me express my deepest gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention.
Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father — my grandfather — was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.
While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor my grandfather signed up for duty; joined Patton’s army, marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised a baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through F.H.A., and later moved west all the way to Hawaii in search of opportunity.
And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter. A common dream, born of two continents.
My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ”blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined — They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.
They’re both passed away now. And yet, I know that on this night they look down on me with great pride.
They stand here — And I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.
This year, in this election we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we’re measuring up to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations.
And fellow Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, I say to you tonight: We have more work to do — more work to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that’s moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour; more to do for the father that I met who was losing his job and choking back the tears, wondering how he would pay 4500 dollars a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on; more to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The people I meet — in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks — they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead, and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon. Go in — Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn; they know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.
People don’t expect — People don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all.
They know we can do better. And they want that choice.
In this election, we offer that choice. Our Party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. And that man is John Kerry.
John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and service because they’ve defined his life. From his heroic service to Vietnam, to his years as a prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he’s devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we’ve seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available.
His values and his record affirm what is best in us. John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded; so instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he offers them to companies creating jobs here at home.
John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves.
John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren’t held hostage to the profits of oil companies, or the sabotage of foreign oil fields.
John Kerry believes in the Constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties, nor use faith as a wedge to divide us.
And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world war must be an option sometimes, but it should never be the first option.
You know, a while back — awhile back I met a young man named Shamus in a V.F.W. Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid — six two, six three, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. And as I listened to him explain why he’d enlisted, the absolute faith he had in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might ever hope for in a child.
But then I asked myself, “Are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us?”
I thought of the 900 men and women — sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who won’t be returning to their own hometowns. I thought of the families I’ve met who were struggling to get by without a loved one’s full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but still lacked long-term health benefits because they were Reservists.
When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.
Now — Now let me be clear. Let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued. And they must be defeated. John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure.
John Kerry believes in America. And he knows that it’s not enough for just some of us to prosper — for alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we’re all connected as one people. If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there is a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for their prescription drugs, and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
It is that fundamental belief — It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.
E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of “anything goes.” Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an “awesome God” in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end — In the end — In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?
John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope.
I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.
Hope — Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!
In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.
I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.
I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.
I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us.
America! Tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do — if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as President, and John Edwards will be sworn in as Vice President, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.
Thank you very much everybody. God bless you. Thank you.
Look at this hip cat. It’s Barack ‘Barry’ Obama. His yearbook photo was always gonna be the best lookin’. I mean, can you imagine 
Irregular Bones 