Throwback Thursday: Peace

Here’s another drawing I did as a child that my late mother kept all of these years later.

I did this drawing using a blue ballpoint pen. It depicts a dove holding an olive branch in its beak with the word “peace” underneath. With the ongoing war in Ukraine along with the frequent threats from Donald Trump supporters of a second American Civil War, this old drawing of mine is more relevant than ever.

Link-O-Rama

CDs and vinyl are outselling digital downloads for the first time since 2011.

Here who isn’t winning from denuclearization talks and friendlier North Korea-South Korea relations.

This delightful magpie puppet is carved from wood.

Our president ignores an American hero: Trump’s silence on the Waffle House murders is deafening.

One pro-Trump avatar troll hacked the Instagram account of another avatar.

An abandoned radio station is an untouched time capsule from the 1940s.

Workers at Chinese factory for Ivanka Trump’s clothing paid $62 a week.

Secretly taped audio reveals Democratic leadership pressuring progressives to leave the primary race.

Global clothing company Patagonia donated its entire $10 million Black Friday sales to environmental organizations.

Meet the man who wrote “Conjunction Junction” and other Schoolhouse Rock songs that stick in your head.

Ancient Rome’s systems of roads visualized in the style of modern subway maps.

This writer explains the downside of writing for The Huffington Post for exposure instead of money.

A look at a new memorial for the victims of lynching.

That creepy abandoned Wizard of Oz theme park in North Carolina is reopening this summer.

Why we need to get over our obsession with the Joker.

Back in 1933 Frida Kahlo wrote a personal letter to Georgia O’Keeffe after O’Keeffe’s nervous breakdown.

Hackers can freeze the camera that lets you know whether your Amazon Key equipped door is locked and who is using it.

A visual guide to the potential ecological disaster of Trump’s proposed border wall.

A Tabletop Christmas, Part 11

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

This latest installment in my 12-part Tabletop Christmas series focuses on other tree ornaments that I haven’t featured in this series so far.

The ornament in the next photo was one that was released in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World in 1992. That commemoration was controversial mainly because Christopher Columbus’ role in history has become extremely controversial in recent years. I remember when replicas of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria docked at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, which drew some protests. I saw those ships myself and I was disappointed to learn that only the top deck was opened to the general public while the rest of the decks were roped off. I purchased the ornament because I thought it was very cute, which was the same reason why it survived my purge of excessive ornaments.

This next photo shows a very stylized reindeer that I purchased from the Christmas shop at Valley View Farms years before I started this blog. I’ve always loved the design of this reindeer, which was why that one also survived my ornaments purge.

Here’s a cute Hallmark ornament in the form of a bull-shaped piñata that has “Feliz Navidad” written on the sides.

Here’s a glittery gold snowflake ornament that was given to me by one of my relatives years ago. I especially love the way it reflects when the lights are on.

Here’s a gold heart that I purchased years ago because my then-husband said that he loves hearts. I kept it after he left and I made my ornaments purge because it looks lovely in the Christmas tree, especially when viewed from afar.

The two ornaments in the next photo feature a gold leaf and a dolphin. I know the gold leaf was given to me and my then-husband by a family member but I don’t remember if it came from my parents, my mother-in-law, or my sister-in-law. The dolphin ornament was a Hallmark ornament that I purchased for my then-husband not long after we were married because my husband really loved dolphins. Naturally he left that one behind when he left me but I kept it because the dolphin looks really cute in the tree, especially with it looking like it’s in the middle of a mid-air jump through a Christmas wreath.

This stylized wood star came from a relative from my then-husband’s side of the family but I don’t remember if his mother, sister, or his late Aunt Sue gave it to us. I usually hang this one towards the bottom of the tree.

The next photo features two small ornaments. The pink elephant is made from glass and I purchased it from the Christmas shop at Behnke’s Nurseries years ago because it reminded me of the famous “Pink Elephants on Parade” sequence from the Disney movie Dumbo. This ornament even came with a tiny plastic champaign glass but, unfortunately, the champaign glass snapped off a long time ago and I couldn’t find it. The pink elephant still looks nice without the champaign glass so I kept it. The cat is a Hallmark ornament that was given to me by my parents when I was a teenager.

The next photograph shows a Hallmark Mistletoe Fairy that I purchased mainly because when I was married my husband and I had a tradition where we hung mistletoe above the kitchen door and we used to time our meetings at the kitchen door so we would kiss. (LOL!) We didn’t get mistletoe in 2011 mainly because I was recovering from hip surgery and my husband was sick with bronchitis at the same time. I also didn’t know that he was planning to leave me three days after Christmas (and three months after my hip surgery) for a seriously mentally ill friend of ours. I thought about getting rid of that ornament when I was doing my ornaments purge but I ended up keeping it because this fairy looks really nice in the tree. I no longer keep mistletoe in my home so this ornament is about as close to having mistletoe as I get these days. (LOL!)

This next ornament is a ceramic peppermint unicorn ornament that I purchased from a Hallmark store at a clearance price during a post-Christmas sale one year. That’s another ornament that I’ve always loved to hang in my tree.

Remember the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990’s? At one point Ty came out with a line of Christmas ornaments that were smaller versions of the Beanie Babies. I selected Peace the Tye-Dyed Bear because I thought he was cute and I also remember the traditional “Peace on Earth” greeting at Christmas.

The next few photos are small greeting cards that double as Christmas ornaments, which were given to me by my parents. Each of these greeting card ornaments have the same Victorian Era illustrations on both sides along with a tiny string to hang them on. Here is one of these card ornaments that I still have.

The inside of this card says “A special gift from you to me to hang upon your Christmas tree. From: Mom & Dad To: Kim”.

Here’s the other greeting card ornament that I still have. This one also has the same Victorian Era illustration on both sides.

The inside of this card says “A special gift from you to me to hang upon your Christmas tree. From: Mom & Dad To: Kim.”

Last, but not least, is this red bell that’s currently hanging on my tree as a Christmas ornament. Here’s some background. I’m currently involved in starting a new local chapter of the National Grange in my hometown and I’m serving as the Vice President mainly because this new chapter desperately needed officers and I stepped up to the plate. We decided to walk around town singing Christmas carols one evening before Christmas as a way of both publicizing the new group and spreading Christmas cheer in general. One person brought a bunch of bells that we could ring so that was how I ended up with this red bell. The high point came when we walked around the hallways of this apartment complex that’s designed for senior citizens and disabled adults singing Christmas carols and the residents there really loved it and they all smiled. At the end of the evening I attempted to give my bell back to the person who brought it but she told me that I could keep it. So I hung it on the Christmas tree.

I especially like the snowflake cutout at the bottom.

Part 12

Interesting Graffiti

I saw this graffiti on a telephone pole while I was walking around in my neighborhood one day.

Unveiling of a New Peace Memorial in Greenbelt, Maryland, June 27, 2015

In my last post I mentioned that I went to two separate events on a rainy Saturday. In the morning I went downtown with a few friends from my church to the National Museum for Women in the Arts then ate lunch at a nearby Cosi, which I already wrote about. After lunch we all took the Metro back to Maryland where we all went our separate ways.

I went from the Metro straight to another event that I wanted to attend that was also held on the same day. This event started at 4 p.m., which was why I was able to make two events in one day. It was important to me because it was a dedication to four people whom I knew and who all died within a four-year time span.

I previously posted in this blog photos of two of the honored people that were taken shortly before their deaths at the 2012 Greenbelt Labor Day Parade. At the time Bob Auerbach (the white bearded man wearing a green shirt with a wide-brimmed hat, light grey shorts, and long white socks) was running for Congress on the Green Party ticket. Had he won, he would’ve been the oldest man ever elected to Congress. The big man in the white shirt and dark pants holding a large sign saying “Vote For Bob Auerbach” (while that sign unfortunately obscured part of his face in both photos) is Doug Love.

Three months after I took those two photos, Bob was struck by a car while he attempted to cross a street just two days before his 93rd birthday. Four months after Bob’s death, Doug Love had also died after losing a short battle with cancer.

Friends of the four activists were so inspired by their non-stop devotion to the cause of peace that they decided to erect a peace memorial to them. It took a while in order to find a spot then fill out all the forms with the appropriate local authorities while designing the site.

The unveiling was supposed to be held outdoors. However, like I wrote in my last post, it was raining very heavily all throughout the day. I drove in my car past the area where the memorial unveiling was supposed to take place and I saw no one there. I decided to take a chance and try the nearby Greenbelt Community Center and I saw a notice announcing that the memorial had been moved to a room in that building. I managed to make it to the ceremony just in time. When I entered I noticed this flag that had the word “peace” written in a variety of languages.

There was a display showing a photo of the four activists who were being honored.

The next photo shows a closeup of the writing that was in the middle of the display.

The next photo shows a closeup of Bob Auerbach’s picture.

I first met Bob years ago while I was still a college student at the University of Maryland at College Park. I was dating a man who would become my future ex-husband. My boyfriend used to tell me about how, when he reached the legal voting age, he cast his first ballot for the third party candidate Barry Commoner. Around that time the Green Party in West Germany received seats in the parliament and international attention for being a ragtag alternative party who shook things up in West German politics. (The Greens were strongly against the nuclear proliferation from both the U.S. and the Soviet Union.) My boyfriend became so intrigued by this that he told me he did research for any U.S. counterpart, he made a few phone calls, and was given Bob Auerbach’s number as a local contact. He called Bob up and Bob invited the two of us over to his place for a few hours.

So I decided to go along with my boyfriend. I had heard that the Green Party in West Germany were made up of activists in their 20’s and 30’s (the most prominent of which was Petra Kelly) and I expected a similarly young person who wasn’t much older than me. I was surprised when I saw what Bob looked like. He was in his 60’s back then (which made him older than even my own parents) and he had the bald head and long white beard that he still had until he died. We talked for a few hours and he seemed very enthusiastic about wanting help in spreading the growth of the Green Party in the United States. He had been a longtime peace activist going as far back as the late 1930’s (when he joined the War Resisters League) who never stopped and he was involved in a whole lot of local organizations, all of which dealt with peace and justice issues.

My boyfriend and I were still students at the time (he was a part-time grad student and full-time NASA employee while I was a full-time undergraduate student) so we weren’t able to devote as much time to Bob’s cause as he wanted us to. We briefly attempted to hold some kind of talk on campus about the Citizens Party (which the U.S. version of the Green Party was called at the time) but the attendance was poor and the Citizens Party never quite got a foothold on campus. (It was also the same year that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was making his first run for president and many students on campus were more interested in his campaign than in building any kind ot a third party.)

After I graduated and married my boyfriend I would see Bob around from time to time. Ironically, shortly before our wedding, my boyfriend and I started attending a local Unitarian Universalist congregation and we ultimately joined it. Bob’s ex-wife, Mary Carson, was a longtime member of that congregation who used to sing in the choir and she was active on a number of committees. (Her health had become frail in recent years so she rarely attends services anymore unless a family member takes her there for special occasions like the winter holiday season.)

The next photo shows a closeup of Esther Webb’s picture.

Esther Webb was the first of the four honored peace activists to pass away (back in 2009). My then-husband and I met Esther when we got involved in a local group known as the Pledge of Resistance that was protesting the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America. Esther was a devout Quaker and among the more committed peace activists I’ve ever known. She was arrested numerous times for her nonviolent resistance. (She was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.) She was always bright and eager and she was optimistic about the righteousness of always struggling for peace and justice.

The next photo shows a closeup of Bert Donn’s picture.

Of the four activists, Bert Donn was the one I knew best. Like Esther Webb, my husband and I also first met Bert through that same Pledge of Resistance organization that protested the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America. In addition, my husband and I first knew his wife, Marj Donn, when she served as the Director of Religious Education at our Unitarian Universalist congregation then, after she retired from that job, she continued serving on a variety of church committees (such as the Social Action Committee). Bert only attended UU services on special occasions so we worked with him mainly through the Pledge of Resistance. Bert had been a peace activist as far back as the early 1950’s while he worked a day job at the same NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as my husband did. (I’ll never forget the time that my husband and I were at Bert and Marj’s house and Bert showed us old newsletters, flyers, and similar items from various peace and justice groups he had been involved with. Some of those papers dated as far back as the 1950’s. He had them carefully organized and filed.) Bert passed away just a few months after my husband abruptly walked out on me. When his memorial service took place I attended it even though I dreaded the possibility of seeing my estranged husband also present. In fact I expected him to be there because both he and Bert shared a love of working with NASA. I dealt with it by facing the front of the church at all times during the service. Once it ended I looked around and found that my estranged husband hadn’t attended at all.

The next photo shows a closeup of Doug Love’s picture.

Of the four activists, Doug Love was the one I knew the least. I would see him around town and he was always friendly and willing to say “Hi” to anyone who had just happened to pass him by on the street regardless of whether Doug knew that person or not. I still remember this deal we had struck together just one year before his death in 2013. I have a mulberry tree that’s on the property line between my home and my neighbor’s home that was planted sometime in the distant past by a previous occupant of my townhouse. That tree produces more mulberries than my husband and I could ever eat. (And, to be honest, mulberries are pretty bland in taste compared to raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries.) The berries tend to fall to the ground and dot the front lawn for a few months until they eventuall rot and they get overgrown by the grass. One day, just a few months after my husband walked out on me, Doug came by my home because he loved mulberries and the tree he usually used to pick them that was located on the public property areas in the neighborhood had died and he noticed that I had them. We worked out an agreement where I would let him spread tarp underneath the tree in order to capture the mulberries. I didn’t mind the tarp because it was there for only a couple of weeks until Doug got enough mulberries for his personal use. The good thing was that my front lawn was less messy with excess mulberries. Sadly that agreement was short-lived because of Doug’s illness and death and, once again, I have to deal with mulberries falling to the ground in large masses as of this writing.

The room in the Greenbelt Community Center had to be hastily set up to accommodate an event that was originally scheduled to be held outside. Judging from the next two photos, I have to say that the organizers did a great job with decorating the room on short notice.

The ceremony consisted of family and friends giving a eulogy for one of the activists followed by singing a peace song (such as “Down by the Riverside”) followed by another eulogy for one of the other activists and, so forth, until all four of the activists were honored. The formal ceremony ended with Greenbelt Mayor Emmett Jordan (the tall guy in the blue striped shirt and navy blue pants) helping the activists’ friends and family members with cutting one ribbon for each of the activists.

There was a reception which included vegan food served on recyclable/compostable dishes and eating utensils. One person brought a bunch of strawberry plants asking those in attendance to take at least one strawberry plant home to plant in memory of the activists. Since I was currently in the process of trying to start a strawberry patch in the front lawn of my home, I eagerly took two plants and I planted them the next day.

After the reception went on for a while, we all got word that the rain had subsided for a bit and some people decided to walk down to the site of the memorial (and the ill-fated unveiling) to get a look at it. I followed the people because I was curious to see where it was located. (For the record it’s located near the rear entrance of the Greenbelt Public Library at the bottom of this hill.) The memorial consists of four benches (one for each of the activists) and they were meant for any passers-by to sit on and do some silent contemplation (especially of peace and justice issues). A lot of people sat on those benches despite the fact that everything was wet from that massive downpour.

I wasn’t in the mood to get my pants wet so I passed on sitting on the benches. I’ll return at another time (preferably on a less rainy and wet day) and take a closer look at the memorial as well as take a few pictures.

Update (July 22, 2015): Here are some more detailed photos of the new memorial, which I shot on a day that wasn’t raining at all.

The Importance of Books and Other Writings When Dealing With a Runaway Spouse

Tomorrow, June 11, is the one-year anniversary of the official notice that my divorce is final. In the state where I live (Maryland) divorce is generally a two-part process. The first part is appearing in court and the one-year anniversary of that first part has already passed two months ago.

It’s pretty ironic knowing that the anniversaries of both parts of this divorce fall on a Throwback Thursday two months apart.

When my husband abruptly ran away from home on December 28, 2011, I was completely devastated. He never indicated that he was the least bit unhappy and he took loving care of me while I was recuperating from the hip surgery I underwent just three months earlier. Worse, he refused to talk to me unless it was a demand that I conform to a separation schedule that existed only in his head.

In the time since he left I have come across some books and web sites that were all a tremendous help to me after my husband ran away like he did. I’m going to list them in the hopes that they could help others in my situation.

In the days following his walkout, I did a Google search on “my husband ran away from home” and I got directed to a book written by Vikki Stark called Runaway Husbands. I immediately ordered the book and I’ve read it several times since then. Vikki Stark is a therapist whose marriage suddenly imploded in a similar manner to the way mine did. Just as my husband walked out on me abruptly three months after undergoing hip surgery, her husband walked out on her abruptly while she was at the tail end of a tour she had gone on to promote her first book she had written about sister relationships. Using the same research methods she employed with her previous book, she conducted a survey of other people who were in good marriages until their spouses suddenly decided that they were divorcing without letting them know until the last minute. Runaway Husbands, her second book, was the result of that research while she also told the story about how her husband abruptly left her.

All I can say that after reading that book several times, I’m still amazed at how the experiences of the other people interviewed for that book are nearly identical to my own experience.

While the bulk of Stark’s book is focused on the person who was left behind by a runaway spouse, she did have a section devoted to theories on why grown adults feel the need to runaway from home so abruptly which, like the rest of the book, were based on the responses to a survey that Stark conducted with other women who had experienced their marriages ending in the same way that Stark’s marriage ended. I found those theories very interesting. All I can say is that my ex-husband definitely has issues and there’s nothing I can say or do that would help my ex get rid of those issues because he’s the only one who can work of them. (One example, as of this writing, is the fact that he has yet to make any kind of amends towards me for what he’s done nor has he even accepted any kind of responsibility for his actions since the night he walked out on me on December 28, 2011.)

I began to read other books and writings on the web that helped me. I got Martha Stout’s book The Sociopath Next Door because Vikki Stark referenced it in her Runaway Husbands book and that one was an eye-opener. I learned that, contrary to popular perception, the vast majority of sociopaths aren’t serial killers. (The ones who are serial killers are the most extreme type of sociopaths. The vast majority of sociopaths never go that route because they know they would land in prison and they would lose control—the very thing that sociopaths value the most.) But they are the type of person who is likable and charming yet that person can do the most hurtful act on another person or animal and don’t feel anything about it.

At times I also read up on narcissism (mainly because The Runaway Husbands book mentioned it as one of the theories why husbands run away from home) and I found this article written by Linda Martinez-Lewi called Divorcing a Narcissist—You Are the Enemy. This quote especially jumped out at me.

You didn’t know that your spouse has morphed you into The Enemy. He or she has never been a true partner.

That is so true. My husband went from being the most loving person to someone who, through his e-mails and texts, suddenly showed total contempt for me. I took my therapist’s advice and told him to treat me with respect but that request fell on deaf ears as he went out of his way to show how much he had really secretly detested me for all the years that we were married. It’s a devastating truth to learn because there are times when I find myself wondering that if he really detested me, why did he ever ask me to marry him in the first place? He could’ve just broken up with me while we were still dating, I would’ve dealt with a broken heart for a while then moved on to other relationships.  But, no, that would’ve been too easy. He decided to marry me and just stay with me even though he was secretly in contempt for me the entire time until something better came along.

Here’s proof that my husband detested me and considered me to be his enemy: He sent a divorce petition in a .pdf format via e-mail on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2012. He knew that the one-year anniversary was on December 28 and he couldn’t file for divorce in the state of Maryland until then. He sent that e-mail because he knew that it was the Christmas holiday season and he wanted to ruin my holiday celebration.

This next quote from the same article is also telling.

You are blamed for everything. He/she is lying about you, making you appear to be crazy, immoral, a substance abuser, tramp. You name it and you are accused. Lies are spread to your friends, acquaintances, even reaching at times your work environment.

I know that he definitely blamed me for his feeling the need to move out then immediately start taking a friend of ours, who has severe mental health issues, to the same places where my husband and I were regulars, which led to other friends finding out the real reason why he left me before I did. I don’t know what my ex-husband has told our friends and acquaintances about me and, to be honest, I don’t want to know. All that I know is that the majority of my old friends are still my friends and they are usually very friendly and cordial towards me. Some of my friends have confessed to me that they haven’t had anything to do with my ex-husband since he left me because they found his actions so appalling.

When I was searching Amazon.com for Martha Stout’s book, it had a list of similar books that I might like. One book caught my eye. It’s written by a man known only as Peace and it’s called Psychopath Free.  I read the blurb and I found that it’s a short primer providing helpful advice for people who have gone through devastating relationships as I did. I liked the write-up and I ordered it.  I learned that while there are technical differences between a sociopath and a narcissist, that book said that for the reader’s purpose, it doesn’t matter which type someone is because the only thing that the person can do is to not contact the other person as much as possible. It’s a short book but it’s full of helpful advice on moving on with your life.

I’ve also done Internet research on my husband’s behavior during and after the divorce and I learned that what he did was emotional abuse, which can be just as psychologically devastating as physical abuse. I used to think that my husband was honorable person who was full of integrity but I now know that he faked it all along. The very fact that he didn’t tell me that he was unhappy until the night he left showed that he is little more than a conflict-avoiding coward. The subsequent cyberbullying he did to me via texts and e-mails only proved the fact that he’s a coward. Ironically he used to tell me that other kids in elementary, junior high, and high schools had bullied him and picked on him. Given his actions in recent years, I’m starting to seriously doubt this version of his childhood. Given the fact that he seemed so clever and skilled with the bullying he did towards me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he honed those skills on other unfortunate kids while he was growing up and he somehow got away with it. (Of course I don’t have any evidence to support that theory. I’m basing it on a hunch that came from my experiences with dealing directly with his worst aspects since late December, 2011.)

There’s another piece of writing that I’ve been reading on a regular basis that was recommended to me by my support group for people who are separated or divorced. Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go and The Language of Letting Go 2 are a series of daily meditations on how to emerge from a codependent relationship and to let go of the past (including relationships with friends, family members, and even spouses that just aren’t working for you any more) while healing yourself. I found both books to be very profound and insightful and I now know that both my husband and I made mistakes in our marriage and we both unknowingly created a codependent relationship. Had we consulted with a marriage counselor instead of my husband running away from home, I believe that we could’ve salvaged our marriage. But since he’s gone I have to pick up the pieces of my own life. All I know is that I learned a few lessons from this painful episode and if I had to go through it all over again, I definitely would’ve done things differently. I wrote about those lessons last December (on the second anniversary of his walkout) so I won’t regurgitate them here.

All I can say to anyone who is in my situation with a significant other who has ran away from home is to do as much reading as possible. Educate yourself. Knowledge is power and you need as much of it as you can stuff into your head in order to cope with an unusual situation. And don’t let the naysayers try to deter you from educating yourself. (I had one of my ex-husband’s relatives try to discourage me from reading Vikki Stark’s Runaway Husbands book saying that I can’t believe everything that I read. Never mind the fact that this relative has never read the book and has this tendency to minimize the things that my ex has done to me over the last few years simply because the ex is a blood relative. There’s nothing wrong with being loyal to your family but I think family loyalty can have its downside if it leads to seeing your relatives through idealized rose-colored glasses instead of seeing that relative as he/she really is.) All I can say is read, read, and keep on reading. There is no such thing as too much knowledge when it comes to a situation like mine.

(Read more about how it took more than just books and websites when dealing with my runaway husband.)

Peace Signs are Evil?!?

Sometimes I tend to mindlessly surf the Internet. I came across this American Girl doll fan site called Living a Doll’s Life that tends to post news and rumors regarding—what else?—American Girl dolls. Before I go any further about that blog, I’ll give you some background. A couple of years ago, on the day before I was to undergo hip surgery, I decided to treat myself to a day of fun by walking around Tyson’s Corner Mall in my walker.

Among the stores I visited was American Girl Place. I found a historic 1970’s doll named Julie Albright which had kind of freaked me out because I was a kid in the 1970’s and here was an American Girl doll representing the 1970’s as history. But I took a look at the doll and I found that she was wearing a peasant blouse that was similar to a peasant blouse my mother once sewed for me back in the 70’s and the rest of her outfit is similar to clothes I used to wear in the 70’s. To make a long story short, I ended up buying the doll and the books about the doll.

Fast forward a few years and I stumble across that Living a Doll’s Life site that’s full of the latest rumors regarding possible American Girl doll redesigns that could be released this fall (if the rumors are true—American Girl itself has not confirmed or denied this). The site had photos of what it says are advanced photos of Julie that will be wearing a new default outfit with a giant peace sign. I think it’s a cute outfit but it doesn’t resonate with me as much as the other outfit because I never owned an outfit like that.

But I am familiar with the peace sign, having seen it while growing up in a variety of places (including protest signs, clothes, hats, and bumper stickers). To me the graphic on the top of this post means peace without any other secret sinister symbolism. I’ve always equated the peace sign with something happy. But then I saw the comments section to that post on the other blog that says this.

COMMENT: I like this outfit and it looks “more seventies” to me. The only problem is that I don’t allow peace signs.

REPLY 1: I’m sorry, someone has to ask…why don’t you allow peace signs?

REPLY 2: Google it.

REPLY 3: Some Christians think the peace sign is Jesus upside down on the cross/a demonic sign. Weird.

As someone who was raised in the Roman Catholic church and now attends a Unitarian Universalist church, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the peace sign being equated with Jesus being crucified upside down. I looked it up on the Wikipedia and found that it was created in 1958 for the British nuclear disarmament movement by Gerald Holtom. He created the peace sign by combining the semaphore signals for the letters “N” and “D” (for Nuclear Disarmament). The crucifixion of Jesus didn’t even enter into this design.

Doing a Google search I found that there is a significant minority of Fundamentalist Christians who believe that the peace sign is anti-Christian. This web page is typical of how some Christians view the peace sign.

This is so ridiculous that some Christians are uptight over the peace sign while not raising a peep over the increase in the number of new laws on the state and local levels that criminalize homelessness or how the United States leads the industrialized world in first-day infant mortality rates. The last time I checked the New Testament, I thought that Jesus cared more about the plight of the poor, the homeless, and the downtrodden than over the use of some symbol.

The peace sign has never been linked to genocide like the swastika has because of the latter’s use by the Nazis during World War II. The peace sign is totally innocuous. The idea that it’s meant as a massive “FUCK YOU!” to Jesus is totally ridiculous. I’ve came across a thoughtful post on the peace sign that was written by a Christian and it proves that not all Christians have a dim view of that symbol.

Getting back to American Girl, I wonder what would happen if the Julie doll is being re-released with a new default outfit with a giant peace sign. Will the Fundamentalist Christians start picketing American Girl Place stores across the United States while accusing American Girl of promoting anti-Christianity? The mind wobbles at this one.