Can I please not talk about Cecil the Lion? I’ll be honest… I don’t really know what’s going on, and I don’t want to know. Why are people still hunting lions?
I hope this summer Sunday finds you well caffeinated and mellowing out… not having a full on / ultra mega / whoa what the heck weekend panic like I’ve had. It’s the first of another month and all of the tasks of the hour, day, month, and year tend to pile up in my brain. I’m probably the only person this happens to. Lucky you, right?
Thankfully, the sun keeps shining, the moon waxes and wanes, and the waves keep crashing. Panics be damned.
Here are some of the words of the week, minus the lion.
• “President Obama just became the first sitting president to travel from the White House to the big house and visit a federal prison to make the case (one that seems to have some bipartisan agreement) that it’s time to take a hard look at the hard time the American justice system serves out to thousands of non-violent drug offenders.” Cool Hand Barry.
• Related: From a first arrest to a life sentence.
• We’re coming up on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. How a low-level drug dealer rescued a lot of people during Hurricane Katrina.
• How brand new words are spreading across the nation. What does it mean if I don’t know most of the words on this list? I live on Mars? On fleek. So help us God.
• 6 Amazing Female Athletes That Deserve To Be Famous, Like Yesterday. Pitcher Virne Jackie Mitchell? Go on with your bad self.
• What if feels like to go viral. Please no.
• Necessary. How to meditate anywhere. I call this spacing out.
• The $30 Dinner Party. Yes, we’re adding gin to the Cucumber Mint Water. Blowing the budget on gin.
• Shutterbean made Elderflower Sherbert like a very clever woman.
• I have this blazer and every time I wear it, people are like wait.. what!? It’s an affordable (and yes, polyester) statement piece.
• Next book on my reading list is Making Piece: a memoir of loss, love, and pie by Beth Howard. Beth writes the blog The World Needs More Pie and is currently traveling the globe teaching people the wonders of pie. This is a woman after my heart.
Have a happy Sunday! You’re lovely.
xo Joy
Bonnie
Wow, that was an amazing story about Jabbar Gibson and his life. Well-worth reading, and I hope he makes it on the outside. Thanks for letting all of us know about him. I always look forward to your “Let it Be Sunday” — it’s always filled with treats!
Jodi
You’re lovely! Thank you for all the work you put into your blog, it really shows through xo
Maja
I have to comment that I really like your header/logo. Awesome and simple design. :)
x M.
https://nevermindnm.blogspot.com/
Lizzie
Joy, have you read Life From Scratch by Sasha Martin? It’s a food memoir unlike any other I’ve come across…I devoured it in about 24 hours flat.
Shawn W.
I read Making Piece when it was first released and ironically enough just started reading it again this summer. I think it’s because of all of the amazing fruit at the farmer’s market and my obsession with pie – I just couldn’t resist dusting this book off my shelf and diving in for a second helping. Her grief is palatable, as are the delicious she pies she bakes. It is a very good read. Enjoy.
Bella B
The elderberry sherbert sounds yummy!
https://xoxobella.com/
Ro
I really enjoy your writing style and you share some great info! Happy Sunday and Big Hugs…www.intheknowwithro.blogspot.com
Tom ~ Raise Your Garden
Did you say where that water picture is from? Is it labelled? Is that a hotel to the side or a restaurant? Sorry for pestering you, I guess I just have vacations on the brain. And yes, let’s not talk about Cecil the lion, when it popped up on my newsfeed I thought it was a happy story. Wrong.
Rachael
You’ll love that book, it’s fabulous!
Karen O.
Love the posts as usual. I really look forward to the variety.
Kristen
Another great reading list. Your “Let it Be” posts are my favorite Sunday tradition. Thanks, Joy.
Andrea @ This Knitted Life
You always have the best links each Sunday. Just had to say so.
Emma
Lions are heading towards becoming an endangered species, it’s not about them being ‘nice looking’. Humans need to think about the ramifications of wilfully killing animals for sport and not food or survival.
joythebaker
i realized i sounded unfeeling and that wasn’t my intention.
a
you sounded neither.
And for the record, lions are NO WHERE CLOSE to be endangered. That is a CNN myth.
I fully understand that not everyone is a fan of big game hunting. Walter Palmer (the dentist) was not a hunter, he was a poacher. A rich, white poacher, but a poacher nonetheless. He deserves to be punished for his crime. Note that he has been charged with poaching in the U.S., and that the entire big game hunting community, while still supportive of their sport, is outraged by his actions.
Big game hunters who work within the system are actually helping countries to preserve and build their animal populations, supporting the local economies, and providing food (and sometimes survival) to the local residents. On a good licensed hunt, all meat goes to the local villages, plus huge trophy fees (10s of thousands of dollars) into the local economy, and a large part of that toward conservation efforts (it’s in the interests of hunting outfitters to grow the population – they only want to harvest a few animals relatively speaking, while helping encourage expansion of the population despite the shrinking environment for them). This is a topic where popular “knowledge” is based on a few soundbites from quasi-journalistic news sources, so the entire discussion is skewed. Again, you can still be against the hunting for any number of understandable reasons, but the facts being thrown around on most news sites this week are simply not supportable. This is about emotional outrage, not actual drama.
Interestingly, there have been several stories in which they interviewed citizens of Zimbabwe “on the street”. Almost all of them gave responses that essentially said “yes, it’s too bad. but now can we talk about the REAL issues we here in Zimbabwe are facing? food? clean water? jobs?”. It’s just interesting that we Americans are so much more outraged than the locals, and that we can’t drum up the same support for the human residents of the country.
Jen
Although I feel bad about nice-looking lions being killed, as long as there are still PEOPLE being killed by people, I find it difficult to become outraged. Sorry to all the outraged people out there. And the lion.
SJ
AFREAKINGMEN.
I’m not saying this is what you’re taling about Jen, but personally, I really think it’s sick that people get THIS passionately angry over one dead lion (lookin’ at you Jimmy Kimmel) when there are hundreds of human babies being slaughtered every.single.day. Why is a lion getting more attention than videos literally showing fully formed human limbs in a pyrex dish? Ugh. sick.
Dee
Because it IS possible to care about more than one thing at the time. And if we wait until all the human problems are solved before we start caring about the plight of rapidly declining endangered animals, when do you think that day will come? I can tell you—NEVER.
Richelle
Why does it have to be one or the other? Can’t we be passionately empathetic over any wrong? Human, animal, plant, amoeba? Isn’t it better to be heard and to make a case than to just stay quiet about it? I don’t understand how people get so angry over other people displaying empathy.
danube66
Nice collection of articles – that elderflower sherbert is on my shortlist to make! Happy Sunday to you too!
Rena
Wow, this blazer is such an amazing piece! Now I want it, too, and I’m curious how the people in Bavaria will react :) Happy Sunday!
xx from Bavaria/Germany, Rena http://www.dressedwithsoul.com