Mediaboss Marketing

Newport, N.C

March 1, 2020

TO THE EDITOR:

As Im writing this letter I am a candidate for school board. When it is published, I will be a past candidate or the Republican nominee for Carteret County Board of Education, District 2.

I spent years educating myself studying legislation, educational policy, spending hours a week at the school and in our classrooms. Ive attended every Board of Education meeting for four years, since my oldest child entered Kindergarten. Ive worked hard to raise thousands of dollars for our schools. Ive advocated for the students and teachers, and Im willing to speak out even if I know it will be hit with opposition. Ive also been very open that I support non-partisan school board elections. Education isnt political. Kids arent political. School safety isnt political. Curriculum - not political. Kids arent partisan. And every one of them, every teacher, janitor, cafeteria worker, teacher assistant, librarian, administrator all deserve more. More than the pay they get and much more than the respect they get.

Saturday night, the Crystal Coast Tea Party made the decision to email, and post to their website, a Photoshopped image, of me (and Andrea Beasley) with Nancy Pelosi. They included the verbiage dont be fooled by fake Republicans promising to work with Democrats on Carteret County School Board in non-partisan school board elections. That would be like Senator John McCain promising to vote to end Obamacare, or these two Republican school board candidates shredding the Presidents State of the Union Address.

Not that I feel the need to defend my political history to the Tea Party, but political affiliation is public knowledge, as is which primary you vote. Therefore, its public knowledge, since I registered at age 18 Im a Republican. In addition to my conservative values, that I raise my three small children on, I have a couple things some members of the Tea Party are lacking -Decency and Morals.

With this campaign I was able to show my kids (ages 5, 7, and 8) how to play fair when we stopped to pick up signs that had blown over, we also picked up our opponents. I ran on my qualifications and strengths, not someone elses weakness. The most important thing I showed my three kids is that I will ALWAYS be their voice. I will fight for what is right, and I will fight to always give them the best.

To the Tea Party thank you for giving me the chance to teach my children not to trust anything without doing their research. Thank you for allowing me to teach my kids that you respect people until they give you a reason not to, and after that respect is no longer a privilege its now earned. Thank you for giving me a chance to show them not all people are what they claim to be and for them to be sure they associate with people that will build them up, and cheer them on. If at any point my children realize that their circle isnt cheering them on, they know its okay to walk away and find a new circle.

To the Republican Party Im sorry the Tea Party carries our name on their back. I stand with you disappointed that the Tea Party portrays themselves as true representatives of our party. We all know that the actions of a few on Saturday night do not represent the morals and values that we hold true.

We can do better, and our kids deserve it.

KATIE STATLER

Original post:
Letter to the Editor: Morals and decency | Letters To Editor - Carolinacoastonline

This article is part of our latest Museums special section, which focuses on the intersection of art and politics.

Tea.

And politics.

The connection goes back centuries. But perhaps there hasnt been a better time to consider it than now, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has seized the moment in the recently renovated British Galleries. A whole room is devoted to the drink from China that became the quintessential British symbol.

Tea shaped British government policy and trade and, of course, it figured prominently in what happened in the American colonies.

Showcasing teas place in British history allowed the Met to address a subject we hadnt addressed before, said Wolf Burchard, who was the lead curator for the new galleries. That was the expansion of the British Empire, and it seemed an especially timely topic as Britain pressed ahead with Brexit, its withdrawal from the European Union.

The Met tells the story of tea and politics with two semicircular cases filled with 100 teapots, all made in Britain.

They are midway through the new galleries, a suite devoted to British decorative arts, design and sculpture from 1500 to 1900. Past the tea display are three 18th-century interiors, one from a mansion that was the residence of two British prime ministers and, for two years in the 1890s, of William Waldorf Astor, the heir to an American fortune who became a British subject. Also in the new galleries is a 17th-century staircase with elaborate carvings of pine cones, oak leaves and acorns. It was rescued from a Tudor manor demolished in the 1920s.

But about tea.

It became a quintessentially British symbol the national drink, Dr. Burchard said amid what he called dueling definitions of empire. There were the heroic moments of an artistic golden age in the 17th and 18th centuries, as craftsmen became innovators in silver and porcelain.

But their progress was accompanied by the steady rhythm of growth through exploitation, he said.

Tea let British dealers, and the British government, reach the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean and the American colonies. Tea sent unimaginable riches back to Britain and created, among a new consumer class, a desire for exotic goods.

Iris Moon, another Met curator who worked on the British galleries, said that telling that story let the Met move away from an aristocratic, privileged, upper-crust narrative and really turn the focus to the entrepreneurs, the merchants and the middle class, and think about whos making the stuff that became the backbone of commerce and in many ways British identity.

But the wall texts in the Mets new galleries also point out that the riches from tea were built on the labor of slaves and on resources appropriated from colonies.

We are thinking deeply about the stories told in our galleries, said Max Hollein, the director of the Met, and how every object on display is an outstanding work of art but also embodies a history that can be read from multiple perspectives: A beautiful English teapot speaks to both the prosperous commercial economy and the exploitative history of the tea trade.

Two takes on a single object: That is how complicated the history of something as mundane as tea is.

Lets go out for a cup of tea sounds pretty harmless, the British culinary historian Seren Charrington-Hollins said in an interview, but tea has a far more illicit history than any drug or hard liquor or anything. It was really dark because of the harm it did to people if you look at the conditions on the plantations. They were shocking, but nobody cared.

She said Britain used every bit of protocol and propaganda to be sure tea was seen as a British product.

Tea was almost unknown in the West before the 16th century. When it reached Britain, it was expensive and exotic and, according to The Book of Coffee and Tea, was served as much for its strangeness as its taste.

But profit-minded explorers had heard about it. And the British East India Company, chartered in 1600, became the face of Britain in much of the world as it set up trading routes to send tea back to Britain.

It took longer for tea to reach the American colonies, and eventually Britains efforts to tax tea both for the revenue and to bring the colonists into line backfired. Americans boycotted British tea for a while, and after Britain dropped the tax mandated by the Tea Act of 1773, the East India Company did not help matters. It shipped tea to several cities including Boston and New York tea that, by some accounts, was old and stale. That was what that famous clandestine raid dumped into the harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.

The porcelain manufacturers in Staffordshire, England, who made teapots understood that tea was helping to drive the colonies away from Britain, and they did not wait to exploit the rift. No Stamp Act was the inscription on a teapot made specifically for export to the colonies. On the other side, it said America Liberty Restord as if the ceramist had run short on vowels.

What we are seeing is teapot makers pick up on topical issues, Dr. Moon said.

That is apparent with a George Washington punchpot on display (larger than a teapot and made for a drink with wine and spices).

Yes, the face of the general who defeated the British is on one side of a British-made object. It was a sign that the Staffordshire porcelain makers were also shrewd marketers. They made the punchpot for export to the new nation across the Atlantic, just as they created a teapot showing Frederick II of Prussia, better known as Frederick the Great, for their home market. A hero in Britain after the Seven Years War, Frederick was lionized on the teapot with the inscription Semper sublimis still towering.

The Washington punchpot was a contrast to the bombast of Frederick, Dr. Moon said.

Washington is in civilian garb with that quite delicate lace cravat, Dr. Moon said, and Martha Washington is on the other side.

This was a moment when George Washington was not interested in cultivating a military hero persona, but in reassuring the public that he was a civilian president, she said.

He reminded people on both sides of the Atlantic of the Roman statesman Cincinnatus, who, she said, was plowing his fields when the Romans were having a crisis.

Cincinnatus dropped his plow, helped out and went back to his plow, she continued. The British thought Washington was going to become a dictator, he was going to become a king.

But on the punchpot, destined for export to the new nation across the Atlantic, Washington was depicted as dignified, even statesmanlike not, she said, as a stark raving mad general.

See the original post:
Ah, Tea. So Relaxing. But Its History Is Another Story. - The New York Times

The goings-on beneath the white-rabbit hole at Lambs Players Theatre are as wildly whimsical as they are proudly nonsensical. In Alice, a musical adaptation of Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, incongruity is 90 percent of the fun. While the sharpness of Carrolls satirical sword may be missing from Elizabeth Swados 1980 creation for the stage, the fantastical elements and ingenious characters he created are delightfully intact.

This Alice is a relatively obscure work, best remembered perhaps for an early-80s production that starred Meryl Streep (yes, Meryl Streep) as childrens literatures most famous heroine. Its a strictly ensemble piece with all its actors, save the person playing Alice, filling multiple roles. Its musical score is all over the place, from Calypso to doo-wop, from pop-rock to shades of country, from a capella to the kind of jaunty group sings reminiscent of Godspell. At Lambs, by the way, a five-piece band led by Ian Brandon handles these divergent idioms with aplomb.

Familiarity with Carrolls books is helpful, but only an appreciation for the unpredictable and a resistance to the need for explanation are required. Alice is all about the denizens of Wonderland that Alice (Megan Carmitchel) encounters underground. The strength of the Lambs production, directed and choreographed by Deborah Gilmour Smyth, is in those portrayals: Eileen Bowman as the Queen of Hearts and Humpty Dumpty; Geno Carr as Bill the Lizard, the Mock Turtle and a sobbing baby; Brian Mackey as the Mad Hatter; William BJ Robinson as the Cheshire Cat; Angela Chatelain Avila as the White Rabbit.

Also in the sprightly cast are Nancy Snow Carr, Caitie Grady, Jacob Caltrider, Erika Osuna and Fernando Vega, all of them returnees to the Lambs stage.

The first act basically mirrors Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland, the second act the somewhat darker Through the Looking Glass. The set and projections by Michael McKeon are evocative of the storybooks, the costuming by Jemima Dutra more subtle than you might expect for an Alice production.

A definite highlight is Alices duel with the jabberwocky in Act Two, an impressive feat of onstage magic. Less dramatic but entertaining in its own right is the staging of the Mad Hatters tea party, with the cup and saucer settings strapped to the backs of actors who hunch over to serve as tables.

To some degree, theres an anything-goes approach to the festivities that jibes with the bizarro nature of Wonderland, yet it can be wearying, especially when certain sequences (the Mock Turtle/Gryphon bit for one) overstay their welcomes. It helps to remember that one mini-adventure will be followed by another, and another, until the windup when we learn, alas, that it was all a dream.

The It was all a dream explanation of childhood fantasies (see The Wizard of Oz too) is disappointing when you invest yourself in a completely other world. Its gratifying, however, that in Alice our heroine in the puff-sleeved dress seems to cling to her imagination and its occupants even after shes awakened by her mother.

Maybe Wonderland is a real place after all.

When: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Through April 12.

Where: Lambs Players Theatre, 1142 Orange Ave., Coronado

Tickets: $28-$82

Phone: (619) 437-6300

Online: lambsplayers.org

Coddon is a freelance writer.

Read the original here:
Review: In 'Alice,' the fantastical characters of Wonderland come alive - The San Diego Union-Tribune

SANDWICHES, cakes, tea and coffee will all be on offer in Bromsgrove at an event celebrating Nutrition and Hydration Week.

Care Force Ltd is putting on the free Afternoon Tea as part of the scheme which has taken place every March since 2012.

The drive is aimed at highlighting and educating people on the important role food and drink plays in maintaining health and wellbeing in health and social care.

Organisations from around the world and from all areas of health and social care are encouraged to take part with the global tea party being the highlight of the week.

Entry to the event is free but donations are requested for Age UK Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre Forest, Care Forces nominated charity for 2020.

There will also be a fund-raising raffle with prizes donated by local businesses including Avoncroft Museum, Morrisons and Broad Street DIY.

Care Force operations direction John Hollingsworth said the company was proud to support the global movement.

We hope our tea party will provide an opportunity to bring people together from the local community for an enjoyable afternoon.

Places at the event, which runs at Amphlett Hall from 2.30pm to 4pm on March 19, are limited.

Call Care Force on 01527 577247 or email enquiries@care-force.co.uk to reserve places.

Originally posted here:
A slice of good advice from Bromsgrove's Care Force for Nutrition and Hydration Week - Bromsgrove Standard

The 116th Congress also demonstrated that political influence outside of Washington does not always translate into legislative victories, as progressives are promising.

Without question Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs influence on the Democratic Party also is striking in modern politics for a freshman House member. In her first few months in office she got normally skittish Democrats and some early presidential candidates to sign on to her Green New Deal (introduced with Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts), forced a national conversation about marginal tax rates and Medicare for All, helped tank a plan for Amazon to move to Queens, and catalyzed a vast rejection of corporate PAC money for incumbents who had just a year ago eschewed that plan as impractical at best, unilateral disarmament at worst.

But here was the reality for progressives: Medicare for All got little more than a hearing or two, while the House passed bill after bill pressing more incremental health care changes (but none of which the Republican-controlled Senate would even entertain). The Green New Deal had a messy if high-profile roll out, then fizzled. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez did not have even the modest legislative victories enjoyed by other freshman Democrats like Joseph Neguse of Colorado, Deb Haaland of New Mexico and Lauren Underwood of Illinois, who ran on getting health care bills on the floor.

What is more, many Democrats began to fret early on that the far left was going to do to them what the Tea Party had done to Republicans a few years back: Run them out of town, one primary at a time. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez previously suggested that Democrats who were not sufficiently loyal to an emergent brand of progressive politics should have others like her run against them in a primary. She is now suggesting that, exit polling be damned, Mr. Bidens latest string of successes is because of the strong-arming of corporate lobbyists, something Mr. Sanders has underscored by repeatedly calling Mr. Biden the establishment candidate.

But the results speak for themselves. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez threw her weight behind Cristina Tzintzn Ramirez in her Senate primary campaign in Texas to defeat the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committees chosen candidate, M.J. Hegar. Ms. Hegar ended up easily outpacing a crowded Democratic field.

There are some people who one dont really seem to understand the math of the majority making, said Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, a former intelligence officer, whose Richmond-area district had been held by Republicans for decades. Theres some people that just think that were out of touch and that if we just worked hard, more Democrats would come out of the woodwork, and so we should just try to say all the things that excite all the Democrats. You can say that until youre blue in the face, but there are just not that many Democrats in my district.

Jennifer Steinhauer, a political reporter for The Times, is the author of the forthcoming The Firsts: The Inside Story of the Women Reshaping Congress.

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Read more:
Why Democrats Are Still Not the Party of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - The New York Times