Yesterday

Yesterday was sort of a slow day on the dreaded 1-10 p.m. shift.

The woman at the left is Rose Ong'oa, a doctoral student in the ASU Heritage Studies Program. She's holding a piece of kanga folk art from Zanzibar where women, in the "enlightened" tradition of Islam, are to be seen (sorta) and not heard.

So, to express themselves, they wear clothes and carry objects that are decorated with messages in Swahili. This market basket says, “Come closer my love and let’s eat together. I can’t do it alone.”

Her collection of textiles and other kanga-related objects is on exhibit this month at the ASU Museum.

The museum also has a pretty good display of objects from America's wars. Naturally, I was drawn to the section dealing with the Third Reich, since I collect stuff related to that regime. The only glitch I could find was that a Kriegsmarine (navy) dagger is mounted backwards so that you can't see the front of the eagle/wreath/swastika on the pommel.

Because the blade only fits into the brass scabbard one way, it would be a bit of a hassle to flip the whole display of blade, scabbard and hangers.

And it may be that the dagger was mounted that way because the obverse of the pommel is damaged.

My other contribution was this photo of Craighead County Election Coordinator Sharon Albert checking the numbered seals on boxes of paper ballots from Tuesday's primary.