Awe @ MindSay 
Poor Hope.
Apparently she died of a drug overdose last summer. Her boyfriend is also dead but I don't think he was found with her or anything. Some of her friends left her in a retention pond and it took a couple months for her to be found. What the fuck? Who puts their dead friend in a retention pond? Hasn't anyone ever heard of emergency services? I mean did you all just pass out and find her dead when you woke up? Or did you watch her die and then throw her away like trash?
I worked with her my first job. She was one of the few people who was really nice. I remember one night closing she flipped out about how unhappy the job made her. She told me I probably wouldn't understand why and that I might think that she was crazy but that working at McDonald's wears you down. She was right. The job isn't that hard but over time all the little things add up and you realize that minimum wage for all that fucking abuse is insane.
But she was almost always smiling anyway. She tried to make a shitty job better for everyone. I wish I could have changed her fate. I had a nightmare about her last night. I can't believe she's dead. I'd always kind of though I'd run into her again. Here in Tampa that tends to happen... everyone is sort of loosely connected and people are hard to get rid of... I remember how happy I was to see her when she returned to her old job for a while. I remember how sad it made me when I learned about her boyfriend's attempts on his life.
I guess he got what he wanted. He's dead now. And so is she. I didn't really expect this to bother me this much. She wasn't my best friend or anything. In fact towards the end I saw her a few times and she was pretty far gone... I doubt much mattered to her anymore. But she was still alive. She could have been OK. Or she could at least have not been missing. They could have reported her death but instead they dumped her and waited for her body to be found. Can you imagine calling your friend to hang out and pretending you don't know she's gone? The whole thing is just really unsettling. I feel like a small child refusing to believe she is gone. I want to go back in time and warn her... not that she would listen. Or at least pull her out of the pond. She didn't deserve that. Few people do.
Medal of Honor given to Sioux for heroism
Nation's highest military for valor in North Korea; sergeant died in 1982
WASHINGTON - President Bush apologized Monday that the country waited decades to honor Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble for his military valor in Korea, giving him the Medal of Honor more than 25 years after he died.
Keeble is the first full-blooded Sioux Indian to receive the nation’s highest military award. But it came almost six decades after he saved the lives of fellow soldiers. Keeble died in 1982.
“On behalf of our grateful nation, I deeply regret that this tribute comes decades too late,” Bush said at the White House medal ceremony. “Woody will never hold this medal in his hands or wear it on his uniform. He will never hear a president thank him for his heroism. He will never stand here to see the pride of his friends and loved ones, as I see in their eyes now.”
But, Bush said, there are things the nation can still do for Keeble, even all these years later.
“We can tell his story. We can honor his memory. And we can follow his lead, by showing all those who have followed him on the battlefield the same love and generosity of spirit that Woody showed his country every day,” the president said before a somber East Room audience that included three rows of Keeble’s family members.
'Soldiers watched in awe'
Fellow soldiers, family members and others have been pushing Congress and the White House for years to award Keeble the medal. They said the man known as “Chief,” a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe, deserves the medal for his actions in Korea in 1951, when he saved the lives of other soldiers by taking out more than a dozen of their enemies on a steep hill, even though he himself was wounded.
“Soldiers watched in awe as Woody single-handedly took out one machine gun nest, and then another,” Bush said. “When Woody was through, all 16 enemy soldiers were dead, the hill was taken, and the Allies won the day.”
Pentagon officials had said the legal deadline had passed to award the medal to Keeble unless Congress specifically authorized it. Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Tim Johnson, D-S.D.; and John Thune, R-S.D., introduced legislation to award Keeble the medal, and it was signed by Bush last year.
Keeble was recommended twice for the medal in the 1950s but the applications were lost both times. He instead received the Distinguished Service Cross.
“Some blamed the bureaucracy for a shameful blunder,” Bush said. “Others suspected racism — Woody was a full-blooded Sioux Indian. Whatever the reason, the first Sioux to ever receive the Medal of Honor died without knowing it was his.”
'Woody never complained'
His friends felt he was cheated, Bush said, “yet Woody never complained. See, he believed America was the greatest nation on earth — even when it made mistakes.”
Seventeen members of Keeble’s family, along with soldiers who served with him, attended the ceremony. Keeble’s stepson, Russell Hawkins, accepted the award along with Keeble’s nephew. He said after the ceremony that he does not believe it was racism that delayed the honor.
“I think it was truly lost,” he said of the original recommendations. “I don’t think Woodrow would say it was discrimination. He didn’t see racial colors, he didn’t see racial barriers.”
Hawkins said the family has been pushing for the medal since the early 1970s.
Keeble, who was born in Waubay, S.D., moved to North Dakota as a child. He was also a veteran of World War II and received more than 30 citations, including four Purple Hearts.
Bush saluted Keeble for his military heroism, but also for his conduct in his personal life — pursuing a woman he loved, becoming “an everyday hero” in his community and maintaining cheerfulness — despite his own grief and physical suffering. The wounds he suffered in Korea would “haunt him the rest of his life” and strokes paralyzed his right side and took away his ability to speak, but he mowed lawns and gave money to down-and-out strangers.
“Those who knew Woody can tell countless stories like this — one of a great soldier who became a Good Samaritan,” the president said.
Tonight I was journaling about not attending the Selichot service, well in fact not attending a single service since moving and theorizing why this had happened when Judaism was so central to my life while in Montgomery. Well, in my jammies and writing… hair a mess. No makeup and maybe no deodorant either I just looked at the cat and said. So go. You have fifteen minutes to change. Well I didn’t need to even change clothing, the instructions were to be there for havdalah at 8:45 and selichot would begin at 9. and to bring a pillow and a candle in a container. I mustered up something black and presentable but by no means “normal” synagogue clothing,, grabbed a map and within 15 minutes on the highway I was at the reconstructionist synagogue. People slowly filtered in I introduced myself to a few and got the standard questions. Most of the people lived in my SW neighborhood and laughed at the fact that they had bought a building in NW. But the space was minimalist and beautiful. Light wood floor. No pews but rather long easily moved sofas arranged in a circle emanating from the small wooden bimah. More a readers table than a formal bimah… The window behind the east facing ark was covered in a bronze filigree tree of life. Everyone was invited to come into an anteroom for havdalah. The lights were turned off and the service was short, completely participatory, even with about 60 people, and mostly sung. We then lit the candles we had brought and gathered in a circle standing while a few people changed the torah mantles for the high holy days from green to white. We then sat and it was like no service I had ever attended but what I had always dreamed of. No instruments. Just voices. 75% was sung. No sermon, several lay leaders taking turns about the purpose of selichot. We had a guided meditation with breathing and imagery. Sang more songs and prayers. I actually cried with awe and wonder that a small service could be so meaningful and inspiring with so little said or done and so much internal work accomplished. We ended by singing while we walked outside into the courtyard with our lights and looked at the stars, felt the cool fall air. when each person was ready they blew out their light and that was the signal that people could talk to them. Hugs and thanks followed. I introduced myself to the Rabbi (dressed in jeans and a blue shirt) early in the service I had removed my clogs and was sitting crossed legged on the floor with my eyes closed swaying and singing. My behavior was not out of place I felt one with the universe. Their High Holy days are being held in a larger public building and are free to the public. Their informality, emphasis on individual spirituality and the importance of compassion in life blew me away. I will be going back and back and back. L'Shana Tova
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