Monday, July 11, 2011
Testing one two - chickens
Sorry for the inconveniece but I have to test something on my blog. I do believe that my friend's chickens have found a new free range home. Maia and her family are just pretty cool people.
Right and Wrong and Time and Enemies
Sometimes we make a correct and conscious choice. We are happy and content. Along the journey, however, it becomes so uncomfortable as to appear to be the wrong choice. Perhaps it is the correct choice at the time or in the moment determined, but over time becomes the wrong choice. This must mean that "time" is the enemy to comfortable choices. Perhaps there is no enemy. Perhaps this is just growth.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Freaky the Stillness
The eerie light from the clouds got me up this morning, like the solitary quiet of a snowfall beginning...except of course it is June! Last night was tumultuous in the clouds and we had winds, rain, hail and twister action everywhere, but this morning.... so still and quiet that the neighbor's sprinkler system is all that cuts the silence. I suppose I beat the birds up.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Uncovering The Sissy Boy Story - The UCLA Gay Experiments
In an attempt to avoid working this morning, I stumbled upon this article and began reading. It is part of an article whose headlines I have seen over the last 2 days but avoided - a young man so tormented by who he was internally despite the "therapy" he endured to change that, that he took his life out of the equation. This is indeed the "psychiatric abuse of gender-variant kids." [Gender Shock by Phyllis Burke].
This thing is killing me. And the doctoral student in the 1970's who developed this therapy modality (The Gender Identity Clinic at UCLA in the 1970's) claimed he was trying to "save" youths from succumbing to the sinful practices of homosexuality, yet was caught in May 2010 traveling with a male escort.
Seems the good doctor generously passed along the love (his religious-based hangups) to many other kids. The problem is, one of the kids turned up dead. He could not reconcile the battle within himself. This kind of abuse appears not to be easily fixed. The journalists who broke the story are looking for other kids who endured the experimental therapy out at UCLA in the 1970’s with therapist George Alan Rekers.
I cannot call the man “doctor.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/08/rekers.sissy.boy.experiment/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
This thing is killing me. And the doctoral student in the 1970's who developed this therapy modality (The Gender Identity Clinic at UCLA in the 1970's) claimed he was trying to "save" youths from succumbing to the sinful practices of homosexuality, yet was caught in May 2010 traveling with a male escort.
Seems the good doctor generously passed along the love (his religious-based hangups) to many other kids. The problem is, one of the kids turned up dead. He could not reconcile the battle within himself. This kind of abuse appears not to be easily fixed. The journalists who broke the story are looking for other kids who endured the experimental therapy out at UCLA in the 1970’s with therapist George Alan Rekers.
I cannot call the man “doctor.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/08/rekers.sissy.boy.experiment/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Thursday, June 2, 2011
The Lampedusa Boat Folks
Social issue and cause #257, however, this one cites a recovering boat person with the most descriptive and powerful comment I've heard in quite some time.
While we in this country visit our markets with full shelves, complain about paying our electric and gas bills, kabitz over the price of a gallon of gas, and even clean up after torrential and fatal weather patterns, there exists outside our borders hundreds of thousands of people who shiver every night, who sweat every day, who never have new clothing, have not ridden in a car, cannot find a way to get educated enough to find a better life, are oppressed by their own governmental systems (be they tribal, elected, or imposed), and who know that their children will suffer a similar fate. These people hear a rumor that they can get passage to a better place if they can afford the $1200 or so dollars. This money gains them a small spot on a wooden fishing vessel, barely seaworthy, with hundreds of others, to trek across the waters in the hopes that the rumors are indeed true. For 5 or more days they have no water, no food (their $1200 does not buy this) and if they are fortunate enough to survive the trek from Libya to the Italian coast line, they are deposited squarely in a foreign land where they know no one.
And do you know why they take this potentially fatal risk? Because if they are left at "home", they are assured death. One writer quotes a survivor, who began working with Feed the Children at the specific dropoff location, saying this about the nature of countries and boundaries:
"Accident of birth is all that separate the Western tourists, who fly to Lampedusa every year to frolic on its pristine beaches, from the desperate migrants who wash up, sometimes dead, on its shores.
"Brhane asks why in the 21st century, little more than a passport made of paper divides humanity into two classes of citizens.
" 'Paper, it makes us different,' he says. 'Paper can change the life of a human being.' "
A piece of paper.... something Hakim told me years ago, when trying to explain to me why immigrants work so hard to get "citizenship" in the US, even though they have no intention of renouncing their homeland. A US passport, a piece of paper, changes lives.
It may sound painfully ideal, but I am so thankful for my warm bed, my electricity that allows me to go online and read the news and share thoughts, the gas that heats the air, the food in my refrigerator (albeit some currently resembles another homeschool science experiment), the very old car in my garage, the faded clothing in my closet, and even the clients who fail to pay me on time.
And when I look up what $1200 can buy me in terms of transportation (air, train, boat, auto), I can get a hell of a lot more than a dirty, broken down old wooden fishing boat with barely enough space to sit.
While we in this country visit our markets with full shelves, complain about paying our electric and gas bills, kabitz over the price of a gallon of gas, and even clean up after torrential and fatal weather patterns, there exists outside our borders hundreds of thousands of people who shiver every night, who sweat every day, who never have new clothing, have not ridden in a car, cannot find a way to get educated enough to find a better life, are oppressed by their own governmental systems (be they tribal, elected, or imposed), and who know that their children will suffer a similar fate. These people hear a rumor that they can get passage to a better place if they can afford the $1200 or so dollars. This money gains them a small spot on a wooden fishing vessel, barely seaworthy, with hundreds of others, to trek across the waters in the hopes that the rumors are indeed true. For 5 or more days they have no water, no food (their $1200 does not buy this) and if they are fortunate enough to survive the trek from Libya to the Italian coast line, they are deposited squarely in a foreign land where they know no one.
And do you know why they take this potentially fatal risk? Because if they are left at "home", they are assured death. One writer quotes a survivor, who began working with Feed the Children at the specific dropoff location, saying this about the nature of countries and boundaries:
"Accident of birth is all that separate the Western tourists, who fly to Lampedusa every year to frolic on its pristine beaches, from the desperate migrants who wash up, sometimes dead, on its shores.
"Brhane asks why in the 21st century, little more than a passport made of paper divides humanity into two classes of citizens.
" 'Paper, it makes us different,' he says. 'Paper can change the life of a human being.' "
A piece of paper.... something Hakim told me years ago, when trying to explain to me why immigrants work so hard to get "citizenship" in the US, even though they have no intention of renouncing their homeland. A US passport, a piece of paper, changes lives.
It may sound painfully ideal, but I am so thankful for my warm bed, my electricity that allows me to go online and read the news and share thoughts, the gas that heats the air, the food in my refrigerator (albeit some currently resembles another homeschool science experiment), the very old car in my garage, the faded clothing in my closet, and even the clients who fail to pay me on time.
And when I look up what $1200 can buy me in terms of transportation (air, train, boat, auto), I can get a hell of a lot more than a dirty, broken down old wooden fishing boat with barely enough space to sit.
Monday, May 16, 2011
We Hit the Ceiling!
More a part deux to my previous post on "Headlines", I have read this morning that the US finally did it....we 'hit' the proverbial debt ceiling. What is it you ask? Well, I had no idea either and had to read the CNN Money article. What I read disturbed me so much that I am writing this morning, stone cold sober and no Sambuca (an entry for another day).
It would seem the "debt ceiling" is really a lesson in politics and the Legislative Branch of the US Government, at which point many of us turn off and read no further. I read further this morning finally. Back in 1917, after roughly 140 years, the congress passed a debt ceiling law that allowed the US to borrow, go into debt, up to a certain amount so that Congress did not have to sign off for every single dollar that was borrowed to run the government. The debt ceiling at that time, according to the article, was $11.5 Billion. Today, it is apparently set at $14.294 trillion. Yeah, and we are supposedly going further under EACH MONTH by like $118 BILLION.
The interest alone on that kind of debt has to be bigger than I can wrap my mind around....just the interest. Our great country is so used to the teat of the government, we are drowning in indulgence and have all but stopped working to create things. Well, there are still a few who create things.
Now, the curious thing about the article is the Chicken Little effect, you know, "The Sky is falling!" fears. Because of that fear alone emanating out of that article, I am less moved and will instead just watch my own $$, not indulge in debt if at all possible, and go make breakfast for my son.
Here's the link if you would like to read through it:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/16/news/economy/debt_ceiling_deadline/index.htm?hpt=T2
It would seem the "debt ceiling" is really a lesson in politics and the Legislative Branch of the US Government, at which point many of us turn off and read no further. I read further this morning finally. Back in 1917, after roughly 140 years, the congress passed a debt ceiling law that allowed the US to borrow, go into debt, up to a certain amount so that Congress did not have to sign off for every single dollar that was borrowed to run the government. The debt ceiling at that time, according to the article, was $11.5 Billion. Today, it is apparently set at $14.294 trillion. Yeah, and we are supposedly going further under EACH MONTH by like $118 BILLION.
The interest alone on that kind of debt has to be bigger than I can wrap my mind around....just the interest. Our great country is so used to the teat of the government, we are drowning in indulgence and have all but stopped working to create things. Well, there are still a few who create things.
Now, the curious thing about the article is the Chicken Little effect, you know, "The Sky is falling!" fears. Because of that fear alone emanating out of that article, I am less moved and will instead just watch my own $$, not indulge in debt if at all possible, and go make breakfast for my son.
Here's the link if you would like to read through it:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/16/news/economy/debt_ceiling_deadline/index.htm?hpt=T2
Monday, May 2, 2011
Headlines May 2, 2011
Headlines are a funny thing. One goes to sleep peacefully, and awakens to an array of changes so that nothing will ever be the same as the night before the sleep. The headlines today cause such a mixed feeling in me that I cannot "enjoy" them as everyone on my Facebook page appears to be. It all began with a conversation with a dad economist about ice skating a couple of years ago, and ventured into the arena of global economics and even a little paranoia which, after living in it for many years, I will not willingly venture headlong into again, regardless of its truth or veracity. Personal reasons and survival.
Ok, the gist of all of this would be the headlines (CNN was my fist induction) this morning May 2, 2011, whereby Americans everywhere appear to be rejoicing in the streets at the report of the death and burial at sea of the notorious mass murderer ... Not Harry Potter’s Uncle “Serious Black”, but Osama Bin Laden. I have yet to read a single article because I recall when the headlines read that Palestine was rejoicing in the streets at the news of the deaths of so many Americans on September 11, 2001. Death may be necessary, but death by public and political event is never a celebration time in my mind.
And below that huge, and I mean 48 font huge headline, shows a smaller headline, "Debt Ceiling Fight is Here." THAT one stopped me in my tracks. The economist used that exact language almost a year ago when, after telling me his view of global life and processes, I suggested he make some predictions and I would be more on board if a substantial percent were to manifest. I’m skeptical that way. The morning of May 2, 2011 is the full and complete manifestation of one of those "predictions" a while back...debt ceilings, global monetary funds, global money... and numerous other events he saw as a direct result of our actions at the time. He was quite matter-of –fact about it actually. And of course his explanation of the numerous and previous Osama headlines as a manipulator in the minds of the uninformed masses still rings in my head. Sounds a bit too Ayn Rand-ish, but that is the best explanation I can muster.
We give our power and free choice away willingly when we live in the debt arena. We are giving our power away every day and calling it reality. I struggle everyday with it.
I still won't venture into that paranoia place, but seriously, the dude was on the money! Well, that and #1 ex called. Just too weird. This ostrich is going to put her proverbial head in the sand to get the jobs of the day done, join a “Run Mom, Run” club, enjoy the sunshine. No one has found a way to charge for that... yet.
Ok, the gist of all of this would be the headlines (CNN was my fist induction) this morning May 2, 2011, whereby Americans everywhere appear to be rejoicing in the streets at the report of the death and burial at sea of the notorious mass murderer ... Not Harry Potter’s Uncle “Serious Black”, but Osama Bin Laden. I have yet to read a single article because I recall when the headlines read that Palestine was rejoicing in the streets at the news of the deaths of so many Americans on September 11, 2001. Death may be necessary, but death by public and political event is never a celebration time in my mind.
And below that huge, and I mean 48 font huge headline, shows a smaller headline, "Debt Ceiling Fight is Here." THAT one stopped me in my tracks. The economist used that exact language almost a year ago when, after telling me his view of global life and processes, I suggested he make some predictions and I would be more on board if a substantial percent were to manifest. I’m skeptical that way. The morning of May 2, 2011 is the full and complete manifestation of one of those "predictions" a while back...debt ceilings, global monetary funds, global money... and numerous other events he saw as a direct result of our actions at the time. He was quite matter-of –fact about it actually. And of course his explanation of the numerous and previous Osama headlines as a manipulator in the minds of the uninformed masses still rings in my head. Sounds a bit too Ayn Rand-ish, but that is the best explanation I can muster.
We give our power and free choice away willingly when we live in the debt arena. We are giving our power away every day and calling it reality. I struggle everyday with it.
I still won't venture into that paranoia place, but seriously, the dude was on the money! Well, that and #1 ex called. Just too weird. This ostrich is going to put her proverbial head in the sand to get the jobs of the day done, join a “Run Mom, Run” club, enjoy the sunshine. No one has found a way to charge for that... yet.
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