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Audience on Demand

| alizabethworley
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Photo by Dorien Meijerink from freeimages.com

 

 

“Michael, do you know what time we’re supposed to be at my mom’s?”

In a relationship I am almost always both very happy with and very comforted by, I can sense the contrast as I’ve started a habit of waiting minutes after asking Michael for something before following up on my request—not out of patience, but to prove a point. After ten minutes or more of waiting, when I finally do follow up, Michael can’t say that he was about to respond or that he was just finishing up a task before getting back to me—though sometimes, contrary to my expectations, I find out that he was just taking a little longer to respond and that he did, after all, just need to finish up a task. Continue reading →

The neglected key to quality brainstorming

| joshsabey

Since we began The Brother’s Sabey almost a year ago, many have asked us how we come up with, and I’m quoting here, “such profound insights into the recesses of human experience.” The truth is it’s a collaborative effort fraught with a fair share of ups and downs. We wanted to provide a “behind the scenes” look for our faithful followers. Thanks everyone for your support!

Obamacare is just another lottery

| joshsabey

lab

ELSIE is a woman who works three jobs, one at a law firm organizing documents, one at Coors Field taking tickets, and one at Sam’s club where she gives out more samples than any of the other employees. She’s got a loud southern voice with the slow, soft cadence of a natural storyteller. The last time she bought a lottery ticket was a month ago when the Power Ball reached a record high of 1.5 billion. She used to play once a week, but she was never up late enough to see the winning numbers on TV and so in the morning she would collect the paper from her porch and diligently ruffle through to see if she had won. She did win once, 40 dollars. And almost 200 another time, but her friend who she had sent to purchase the ticket with her lucky numbers never actually did. “If I had won the million, I could have killed him and no judge would condemn me,” she says dryly. “We laughed about it, that’s all.”

Buying a ticket has become a ritual of hope, like a prayer. “It’s nice to imagine,” she says. She thinks of who she would help if she got the money. She wouldn’t move, or change much about her own life. She plays because she likes to imagine giving it all away, all but a little for retirement. She would give some to her nieces and nephews, her co-workers, and she even said she would give some to me. Talking about it for a few minutes with me was enough to brighten her hopes, and she told me, as we were saying goodbye, “you know, I’m going to buy a ticket tomorrow.” Continue reading →

North Carolina’s HB2 won’t work

| joshsabey

Pearl-Jam

North Carolina recently published HB2, a law known as the bathroom law. The reaction has been huge with states and companies starting boycotts. And this morning, Pearl Jam joined the long list of entertainers who have canceled their trip to Raleigh. In short, the law states that people must go to the bathroom of their biological sex rather than gender identity.  The law allows (and encourages) a third bathroom model for people who don’t fit into the traditional genders. This three bathroom model is used in the San Diego airport (not a very conservative place) and so is perhaps not quite as reactionary as it is portrayed. Continue reading →

Building

| MichaelWorley

I am sitting at my desk, typing at a computer that was purchased for me as a graduation present.  On my lap is my newborn son, grown for nine hard months inside my amazing wife.  On my desk are three books that my employers have purchased for me.  On my desk also is a printer that the generosity of my neighbors has recently afforded me.  I sit on a chair that I carried upstairs from where it was abandoned by the salon next door to my apartment. My desk was set up for me for free by an old friend. Near me is a piano that my old roommate is letting me store for him, that I will play as if it were my own.  Also near me are a car seat, swing, a pack-and-play, a couch, a cedar chest, and a high chair– all given to us for free or (in one case) below retail value. In our bedroom, my wife sleeps on a mattress that was a wedding gift. In my fridge are leftovers from meals brought to us by friends.

Continue reading →

Demonizing trump supporters won’t help anyone

| joshsabey

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On March 4th, just months before the end of the Civil war, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address and we see that his mind had turned towards reconstruction and reconciliation. He concludes:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

These are words we might turn to again as the wild success of Donald Trump exposes a large population of people who have a lot in common with Southerners after the civil war. Continue reading →