KateThoughts

Labor Day: not laboring, just thinking

After doing a few online chores and being VERY grateful that the rain is saving me (once again) from the pig-pen chore, I went bouncing around a few of the blogs I read.

Looks like I may need a new list.

Yes, many Americans are having a tough time. Some stories can be quite disheartening, and some of them are not so far from home.

But, tell me, please, what does all this complaining accomplish?

At this blog - KateThoughts - we hold a more positive point of view, and a much broader one. It's all about perspective. Everything is always about perspective.
Perspective and attraction. And no, I'm not fond of The Secret. But I do thoroughly believe that my thoughts, words, and actions have energy & power. Where I place my focus gets BIGGER. If I consistently focus on pain, it hurts MORE, not less. And if I spend my energy complaining of the economy, it will continue to cause struggle for me.

So, 'woe is me/us' posts don't stay on my screen very long. The one thing they accomplish for me is to switch me over into grateful thoughts, almost instantly. 

It seems very important to me - especially in times like these - that we look for the things about which we can be grateful. And about the ways we can lift up those around us who might enjoy a little 'light'. Not everyone we know will want to step out of the complaining/whining stuff. Many don't even know there can be an option. 

So, on this Labor Day, I am grateful for:

• Retirement (thanks Mom & DM)
• Tremendous opportunities to be helpful financially & energetically
• Horizons - and the pet job that brings me to the countryside
• Summer rain showers
• Computers and telephones
• and Awareness:
  that there is so much to be grateful for
  that thoughts have energy
  that tough times can bring insight & inspiration
  that how I 'take' things is a choice I make - repeatedly

So have a nice day,
unless you have other plans, of course.

:)

Alan Watts on Life & Music

Laura posted this today and I am compelled to save it here.
THIS IS IMPORTANT! and I'm not kidding.

Inspiration v. Marketing...Inspiration & Marketing

This is a lovely video about Nature and her inspiring qualities.

Be ready for the major marketing campaign should you click on anything that comes on your screen after the movie plays.

I don't know the answer (yet) to this current quandary of mine. Perhaps you have opinions that might enlighten me.

HMHC is in the middle of Peace Village - a day camp for young kids that includes a segment on media literacy. I'm wondering who's teaching that subject to the rest of us. And I wonder about the 'real' value of films such as the one linked above when its primary function seems to be about selling books and other products.

Do I need a book on Nature, or do I need to go outside?
I'm feeling a little schizo about this already. I love inspirational books, picture books, things that inspire, and I spend money on them.
Someone takes the photos, finds the quotes, publishes...and all the tons of chores attached to producing the book, the video, the ad campaign.
Hell, I'm even filing a bunch of my own photos under the heading of 'the book project'.

And yet, I'm bothered by....this?
        maybe not...
I guess it's mostly the constant barrage of advertising that comes our way on a minute by minute basis. I believe myself to be at least somewhat literate about such media and I still can be caught in the net. I love HGTV, too. And the shows are becoming increasingly about things to sell.

...
OK.
Enough for now. I'll be better off in this moment to go outside. I don't know the answer; don't really need to know the answer. For my inspiration just now, I'll go outside.  You go, too. Your back yard is far enough, though the world awaits.
:)

Music & Art: luxury or necessity?

My friend Erin sent this to me. It is worthy of reading and remembering; hence its posting here.
Thanks Erin.

Written/delivered by Dr. Karl Paulnack, director of the Music Division of The Boston Conservatory.

"One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, "You're WASTING your SAT scores." On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works. The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works. One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire. Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning." On September 12, 2001, I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost. And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day. At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome". Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night. From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds. Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart wrenchingly beautiful piece, "Adagio for Strings". If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does. I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects. I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, North Dakota, about 4 years ago. I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation. Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece. When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself. What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me? Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters. What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: "If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft. You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well. Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."

The Boyle Phenomenon: a rant in two parts

Why was it somehow ok to laugh at her before she sang but not after she sang?

 

I’ve been reading again; always a dangerous activity for me. My brain can run in circles and I’ve heard more than once that I just “take it all too seriously”… mountains out of molehills, that’s me. While most seem to be wondering or ranting about banks, government, politics, etc., I wonder about where civility has gone. Is it really surprising that we are here, in these times & circumstances, when we no longer value things like honesty, respect for others, courage, taking responsibility, & personal integrity?

Yes, I loved the video(s) of Susan Boyle. Like many of you, I’ve searched for her on the ‘net, listened to the song a dozen times or more, looked up Elaine Paige, and tracked downs interviews with Susan, Piers, and Amanda…
(there are more than 11,000 links to videos of SB on YouTube as of this writing, midnight 4-22-09)

Here is an article I found referenced in the comments section at Time Goes By in a post called Celebrating Old Old Age. An excerpt from the article says,

“The YouTube clip of Susan's angel voice soaring from the unkissed mouth of that scrunchy-faced, eyebrow-enforested, unprepossessingly dumpy representative of anonymous humanity was the third irresistible message to us all to get over ourselves.”

I do so completely agree with the last 4 words.

Piers Morgan, a BGT judge said in the videos,

“…Without a doubt that is the biggest surprise I’ve experienced in the three years of this show. …I’m reeling with shock…everyone was laughing at you; no one is laughing now.”

Amanda Holden, another of the BGT judges, said, “…everybody was against you…”, and called it “the biggest wake-up call ever.”

And well it should be.

But is it, really, quite the wake-up call we need? I say no.

In every reference to Susan that I have found, the wake-up call seems to be about judging books by their covers. Ok. There’s nothing really wrong with that; it's a great lesson.
But the lesson I would rather see learned is the one about respect for a human being – any human being – and every human being.  

So I repeat: Why was it somehow ok to laugh at her before she sang but not after she sang?
Susan is herself and came to the competition AS herself, with a tremendous amount of courage, because she had a dream to ‘sing before a large crowd of people’.

What was the relevance of SCowell’s question about her age in a competition with no age requirements? And the eye-rolling & laughter that went on when she answered, “47”…
Given the wide acceptance of rude and offensive behavior in the world today, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but can we really just laugh out loud in someone’s face?

Clearly so.

And then we apologize, and express that hearing her sing “was a privilege”. And all is well; we’ve learned our lesson; let’s get on with things; Susan will be a star and make records…blah, blah, blah.

And what of the woman who lives next door to Susan – or to me – who looks just like her; who does her own hair and sees no need to be or look different than she is; and whose talent is only creating a warm and comfortable home, or, as Susan did before we all discovered her, working for charities, or caring for aging parents?

We don’t applaud those talents very often. So do we just get to keep laughing?

The TGB article is related, though the focus is somewhat different. It comments, in part, on the evident shock that many feel when they learn that an old person can actually DO things, like cooking or driving or working, for heaven’s sake. As if they haven’t been doing that for some several decades already!

Here’s a short excerpt:

“The discomfort, I have come to see, is due to how such a statement diminishes the person. It negates and demeans an entire life, as though the fact that she works at age 100, and not the work she does, is the most important thing about her.”

(Do follow the link to the article, and read the comments, too. There is real meat there, and links to the story of a remarkable woman.)

How is it that we expect a different kind of behavior from our leaders today, in business, politics, government, etc. when we’ve all played our own parts in creating the culture we have? As long as the quantity of one’s possessions is more important than the quality of one’s own integrity, we will continue to live with the Madoff’s of this world. There ARE other voices out there besides the ones who rant & complain. They are just harder to find. One great one can be found here at No Safe Distance.

So when we see a Susan Boyle, and are pleasantly surprised by a rich & beautiful voice, we cry, and feel inspired…for a moment; and never think of the real life of that other woman who flips hamburgers or turns down the bed in our next hotel room, or is old.

And I’ll bet that our own American Idol would not be the raging success that it is if the audience couldn’t do their share of booing and laughing at ___. Why, even the first few episodes of each season are designed to show us the most ‘laughable’ of the contestants. I know two people who only watch those first episodes. It is of no interest to them who might win; they just want to laugh at someone. And if you think I might be exaggerating, go read the comment streams under some of those videos. But don’t read many of them; they are poisonous, symptomatic of our cultural & social ills and very contagious.

Food for Thought or Balancing on One Leg

I’m 61½ now, and I’ve been living the life of Riley for about 4 years.
Things are tougher now, as they may be for many of you, but we have the prospect of Social Security ahead to take up some slack. Joel’s income from that source really makes a difference to us now. I’m still planning to stick it out until I’m 66, but people keep trying to mess with my future.

I hope you will all read The Coming Attack on Social Security… a column by Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By.

She writes clearly, and with links to her sources, which many folks don’t bother with anymore. Follow those links a bit; learn some stuff.

So, should I tell you this? …point you to articles that may scare you, too? Well, no. To focus on the fear is to give it energy, make it bigger than it is. Doesn’t it?
Yes, I believe so.

Ronni makes it clear that SS is fine, for now. IF there is to be a real problem, it will affect our kids & grandkids.
So what am I worrying about?
Just my self, my comfort and ease.
The space between watching HD shows on TV and watching the grass grow.
The difference, in the occasional restaurant meal, between the ‘dollar menu’ and a nice Thai dinner.
The really scary one is the prospect of canceling the trip to Chicago this summer. We’ve been saving up for a year!

I’m at a point in my personal evolution where I am, frankly, stumped: caught between financial fear and its stresses, and the spiritual state of confidence that would, otherwise, allow me to rest in the knowledge that I will learn what I need to know, and be provided for as are the ‘birds of the air’. One day moment I rest in faith that all is as it should be; the next day moment my heart is pounding and I wonder how soon I must drop the cable service or (heaven forbid) the internet, or sell a car.

Maybe I just need to stop reading this stuff.
What happens to my sense of gratitude for all that I am and have?
What is the balance between awareness of current events and resting in the arms of god?

These are the thoughts I’m exploring these days; the fears I grapple with; the wisdom to which I aspire.

Feel like sharing what’s going on in your own head? I’m interested.

…just ‘had’ to…thanks for listening.

First I was afraid; now I'm PETRIFIED!

I've read this article twice now. Here's an excerpt:

This headline from Reuters, More Suffering From Chronic Illnesses, and other pieces trumpeting the spiraling cost of health care could lead one to believe that universal health care is unsustainable and/or unaffordable. But we're not necessarily getting the whole story. As we speak, the health care industry and the insurance industry (they are not the same) are stacking the numbers.

from AQ who blogs at Always Question 

Here's where I stand at the moment. Like AQ, I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I'm fat. (I can say, thankfully, that I have no history of cancer; though my Mom had breast cancer - successfully treated by surgery.) As far as medical records go, her history is a part of my history.

I also have health insurance for which I pay almost $250/month. To keep the payments that low (!?) I have a high deductible and a lot of limits about what can/cannot be treated. Those factors, plus a suspicion about the info that goes into the "system" has kept me going slow and almost holding my breath about having any of these checked out again. Basically, I have health insurance I'm afraid to use. 

I'm a long way from Medicare, though, at 61, and now I'm basically terrified.

And THAT'S a pisser because I'm also convinced that "thoughts we hold in mind, produce in kind".

Aaarrrrrrrrrrggghhh!!!!!!!

I want to scream, and then kill somebody! Hopefully, not myself.

One of the values I've held for a long time is to stand FOR something
rather than to struggle/fight AGAINST something.

There is little doubt that I am being called into battle, now. I feel like David in front of Goliath, who is, of course, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Traditional Western Medicine which knows a lot about illness and very little about health.

I'm being called to battle and I am very pissed! And I'm worried that I/we can't fight it fast enough to make a difference in MY lifetime. That doesn't make the battle less important, it just leaves me scared - and that affects my health - and that makes me scared.....
SHIT!  What a tail-chaser.

I'm going for a walk with Mango, then I'm going back to my meditation cushion and see if I can surrender all this turmoil in this moment.

If you're concerned about health care, I suggest you read this and lots of other articles on the subject. TGB has many in these categories: Health and Universal Healthcare. You know I'm partial to the folks over there, but just Google the subject; there is no dearth of information.

Happy Inauguration Day

I thought I'd get to this sooner, but I just couldn't tear myself away from the events of the day. We even watched thru the entire parade; something many in the official viewing room did not do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CNN has put together this amazing collection of photos, and created a 3-D image you can explore by clicking. They've called it The Moment; the images come from thousands of photos taken by individuals at the ceremony. You won't believe it if you haven't seen it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Someone (a team, surely) in India created this other amazing thing. Check this out.
Sand sculpture in Puri, India and here is the link typed out, just in case...

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Photo-Highlight-Indian-artist-Bhubaneswar2C-India/ss/441/im:/090120/481/de38abda9d7744ceb6d820694dcc74aa/#photoViewer=/090120/481/de38abda9d7744ceb6d820694dcc74aa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

News of Kennedy is everywhere, so I won't repeat that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Were you able to watch? working? playing? I'm sure they will run great excerpts from key moments. Hooray.
and our blessings on you, Mr. President, and your family, and your administration.

Some VERY good, well written articles...

...written by Marian Van Eyk McCain of Elderwoman Space. These were all nominated on a very interesting web site called Ooffoo. I hope you'll follow the links and read a few.  I hope you'll decide to vote for one, too. My personal favorite is Simple Blessings.

Note: I found a little bit of trouble with one or two of the articles loading from the links. If you experience that and still want to read them, just use the Ooffee search feature and hunt by title.

 

Digging for Victory - Again

 

The Yin and the Yang of it

 

Turning Green: The Rise of the ‘Cultural Creatives’

 

Micro-Yoga for the Busy Woman

 

Simple Blessings

 

Healing the Split

 

Here’s where you go to vote:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=qlFU4Im4elMRBk5DWu4gtw%3d%3d

Here is a link to Marian's list on Ooffoo. All of these are nominated except Slow Travel, but that one is worth the read, too. 

Thanks, Marian; good luck!

 

"Grandma's Got it Going On"

posted sometime in 2000, this is Slam Poet Shane Koyczan's terrific performance of a funny and powerful piece. I trust you will enjoy it.

A Good Quote from Jung

"The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own

and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life's morning."

- Carl Gustav Jung

Happy New Year!

Ok, New Year's Eve came; and ran over me! We had two great parties that day. Danced my socks off! Whoopee!
On New Year's Day I had enough energy to put all the furniture back, deal with the leftovers, and finish the last of the dishes. Did not have enough energy for a post...

Here's a good one, and it came from several directions, so I'll save it for posterity here:

And here's Martin Gross with a wonderful rendition of Auld Lang Syne:

Winter Solstice Wishes w/Melissa Etheridge & Salman Ahmad

Today is the Solstice. Noon is less than hour away, here. Meet me outside with your bells! 

Health care: Wouldn't it be great to have some for EVERYBODY?

Ronni Bennett, about whom you already know from this blog, just keeps getting better and more on point, IMHO.
I hope you'll read her article, "Elders Lobbying for Healthcare for Others".  Here's the opening excerpt:

"As I’m sure you remember, during a speech in Cleveland on 20 July 2007,
President Bush had this to say about health care:

"I mean, people have access to health care in America.
After all, you just go to an emergency room."

For the president of the country with the worst record on health care in the
developed world to make such a statement is awful enough,
but I think the greater giveaway is that it tells us a lot about
what rich people think the rest of us are worth."

Saul Friedman, Newsday writer and long-time journalist, wrote this post recently, from which I take this opening excerpt:

"I’m old enough to remember how it was before Medicare. My mother-in-law was in declining health and my wife and I were seeing to her care. On one visit to her family doctor, a golfer whom we called Buzzie, he told us, “Boy, if she only had the money we could give her the treatment she should have.” We left him for a nice, non-Jewish doctor I had met on the police beat."
[emphasis added]

Both of these articles contain links to other reports and articles related to this issue. Here is one from the New England Journal of Medicine, penned by David Blumenthal, an unpaid advisor to Obama.

Ronni calls us to action! So go do it! Here is a link to Obama's Change.gov site where you can tell him what & why. 

Then go to these websites and tell your Congress people.
[Note, some of your Congressional leaders will be new in January; mark your calendar and write to them them. ]

The US House of Representatives
The US Senate

Ronni, thanks for the story, the links, and your encouragement to step up and say my piece. 

So, what's on MY mind? Well...

I'm 61, and in pretty good health, though I have some high blood pressure and I don't even want to know my cholesterol numbers. The most chronic problem is pain in my lower back (from a VERY old injury), and some stuff that may be the beginning of some arthritis. I have a very high threshold for pain, and don't need anything except periodic generics like aspirin or ibuprofen.

Which is a good thing, because my insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, has already disallowed everything that could possibly be associated with my skeletal structure and/or that old injury. In order to comfortably afford the payments, I had to choose a pretty big deductible, and because the treatments I would most like to use and from which I could benefit (chiropractic, massage, Rolfing, etc) are disallowed, I rarely meet the deductible, and so I don't use the services.

Also, there is a $400 annual allowance for 'preventative' care. I tried that out last year. My doc decided that I should have a colonoscopy. No real symptoms, just age related. So, I didn't ask a lot of questions, I just made the appointment and went. Well, part of it all was covered: the $400, of course, but then 50% of this charge and 20% of that charge and yada yada yada, until I was out of pocket almost $2500, AND HAD NOT MET MY DEDUCTIBLE for that year. Better not get the flu!

So, I have health insurance. I can use it for broken legs or heart attacks. In four years I can dump it...and will have enriched BCBS by about $15,000 for basically nothing. What a joy it is.

And the very worst thing, to my way of thinking, is that I'm actually betting with the insurance company that something WILL happen. I'm betting AGAINST myself. Wow! How's that for confidence in the laws of attraction? Crimenentlies!

So, yeah, you bet; I sent my letter to Obama. And I've plugged my calendar to remind me to send similar letters to my 'leaders' in January. Now, you go do it, too.

A little holiday 'good cheer'

We already know this, right?

from an article By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer

"When you're smiling, the whole world really does smile with you. A paper being published Friday in a British medical journal concludes that happiness is contagious—and that people pass on their good cheer even to total strangers. American researchers who tracked more than 4,700 people in Framingham, Mass., as part of a 20-year heart study also found the transferred happiness is good for up to a year. "

Read the full article:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2008-12-04_D94S72PO0&show_article=1&cat=breaking

"Afternoon of life..."

"The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life's morning." - Carl Gustav Jung

 

Prop 8, The Musical ~ (this is too too perfect!)

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Don't ya just love it?!

Heaven Help Us...

I swear, if we gave as much energy to fixing the electoral system or Social Security as we do to keeping the "Others" out of our way, we'd have a whole new country and a lot more global respect.

This particular rant was inspired by yet another group trying to stomp on the rights of some of us - this one about gay marriage. Usually, I link articles I comment on here, but if you want to read any of that kind of stuff, go find it yourself.

But 'others' can be anyone - in certain circles, even you: Gays (that broad category that covers SO many), illegal aliens (in Roswell, they're green), Jews, Hispanics, Little People,...basically anyone different from you.

So, I ask: who do you want to be when you grow up?
Wise?
Christ-like?
Loving?
Open-minded?

Or are you one of those who say, "my mind is made up; don't confuse me with facts."?

Good grief!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to T''ai Chi class in hopes of lowering my blood pressure and enjoying a few deep breaths, and in letting go of my own prejudices for my "others", the ones who want to believe I'm different from themselves.

What you don't (might not) know about Credit

Now that I have (finally) moved to the comfortable side of the credit issue (thanks, Mom!) I'd like to share this link with you. The Secret History of the Credit Card is a collaboration of Frontline and The New York Times "to investigate an industry few Americans understand".
On the site, you can watch the full program, read the articles, and even join a discussion group.

If you have a handle on your credit, then Hooray! This info might still surprise you. And if you don't have your credit dollars under control, this might give you the impetus to work harder at doing so.

I found it very interesting.

Politics, the Isms, and The Big Boys

A must-read, in my humble opinion: go here to Time Goes By for opinion by guest contributor, Linda Burnham, on the two big Isms in the current political race - or try this one by Crabby Old Lady.

I took off from these into a little diatribe of my own, but the cosmic powers that enable (or disable) that sort of thing decided that Firefox had 'encountered an error and must shut down'.  When I got it back, Firefox had saved everything for me, except the text of that post.

Hmmmmm... I'll take that as a sign ; )

Go outside; enjoy the sunshine; and remember the words to Julie Gold's song, From a Distance:

'From a distance you look like my friend,
even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend
what all this fighting is for.'

Here's a link to all the lyrics - just one of many.

The 'best' polititian...? not taking sides here...

In reading & listening to politicians in the coming months, please remember (and bookmark) this site: FactCheck.org. It could help, really.

So, who IS the best politician for you? You are the only one who can answer that.

I suggest that, as you consider their platforms, you might also consider the political system we - yes, WE, the people - have put in place.

Our present system offers a lot of extra coverage to the candidate who has the most money.
Is that a good criteria for measuring competency for leadership?         Maybe.
Does it matter where the money comes from?         Yes, certainly. Drug lobby? Oil lobby? ____  lobby?

And what's up with lobbies, for heaven's sake?!
And what's up with the totally outdated Electoral College?!    Are you so out of touch (or off the grid) that you actually need to give your voting power to a representative? And did you know that it is LEGAL for your Electors to vote any old way they want to?

When & how do we consider a candidate's ethics?
To whose ethical standards do we/should we hold our candidates accountable?
Do ANY of them meet your own standards?

What's with all the MUD? And is the thrower any cleaner than the target?     Not to me.

I wonder what it might be like if a candidate could/would ONLY speak about her/his platforms, ideas, visions and could NOT speak about his/her opponents except to quote from the Congressional Record.
I wonder what a political season might be like if a candidate were not allowed to purchase advertising on TV & radio & in newspapers. What if such news disseminaters had to provide exactly the same number of minutes in the same time frames to all candidates.
Hmmm...

I find it hard to keep paying attention when I hear 'spin' more than substance, and unsubstantiated rumor & mere rhetoric more than reliable platform, and mud slinging & mud dodging.
Makes me a bit crazy, doesn't it you?

My candidate's already gone - lost to financial pressures and unable to purchase the mega-million $$ commercial spots.  (probably a bit simplistic, but he's gone never the less).
And now most of what I hear is race/gender wars which have NO bearing on the actual issues.

AAARRRrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhh!!


exhale... sigh...

Stepping around a Value

As a matter of principle, I decided some time ago to stand FOR things, not to struggle AGAINST things; to compliment rather than criticize; to support rather than to fight; to love rather than hate.

I'm compelled, however, to provide a link to you from one of my favorite bloggers, Ronni Bennett. This post is all about a new Senate Bill, S.1959, dubbed The Thought Crime Bill.  I encourage you to read it and, perhaps, read several of the posts (both hers and others') at this category link. If you're fond of the freedoms you were granted by our Constitution, you may want to become involved before it is too late. If you believe in national karma...well...hmmm...
Here is a link to the text of the bill.

When this bill went thru the House, only 6 representatives voted against it.
What did your presidential hopeful do?
Find out.

Read, be aware, search your heart, take action when/where you can/will.
Look at your values, decide for yourself.

And since we're on the subject, remember this site: FactCheck.org. It's a prize-winning site of great value. Another link to it resides in the sidebar here under Sites to See.

Inspiration from a favorite Blog

Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By is one of my top 5 favorite bloggers. She writes with power and perception about aging and agism from 500 different directions and has a readership that leaves insightful comments. Go meet her.

In a recent post, (and this interview, too) she is at it again. Whether you consider yourself a 'boomer' or not aging does/will affect us all. And Ronni (and her commenters) bring much to the discussion.
I agree with her about most things most of the time. Very cool, thoughtful writer...

This time, while I still agree with both of these articles, I feel there is a bigger picture. One key word is 'marketing'. Another is our 'culture'. Pieces of the same thing and all a part of the world we've built in this part of the world where we measure a person's worth by the size, quantity, cost, or net worth...all those things that describe the same things.
We buy & sell things. We Westerners (perhaps led by we Americans) like to buy & sell. We are encouraged to create a better mousetrap and make our fortunes. It's the American dream, after all.
To do that, we market to each other.
It has skewed our thinking.

And because we are so connected all over the place now, we can't just sell things to our neighbors as we see their needs/desires. We have to guess now, at what people want. We have to 'target' the appropriate 'segments' of the 'market'.  And they (with our permission) begin to hammer us into the holes that fit their 'marketing niches'. What! You have square corners?! Whack-Bang! There now, see how well you fit?

And since we all want things - whether we need them or not is no longer relevant - we absorb the 'marketing messages'. They come at us from every direction; only the most vigilant can hold the number down. Anyone plugged into 'the media' could be hit with as many as 5,000 marketing messages a day.

What?! How many?! 5000 - Five Thousand - five-friggin'-thousand marketing messages a day.

And we, in general, have given those 'market researchers' the right to decide what we need, what we want, how we should look, what brand of this-that-or the-other-thing will make us whole or worthy or good-enough or young enough or... The list goes on forever. It goes on because we 'should' this, or 'should' that.

And some of us who think, or who notice that we don't get the 'proper' attention from the media or the marketers, or who have learned the difference between our toys and our substance begin to be concerned.

For some, the battle is right out in front of everybody - in the trenches where Ronni and others are; pointing out the problems with our language and our marketing campaigns that feed the agist, sexist, racist (& all the other 'ists' and 'isms') notions we get fed.
I believe her. I value her efforts to open the eyes of the marketers, the media, the researchers, and even the eyes of the elders to the subtle and not-so-subtle ways of the world we have built.

For me, right now, the battle is internal. And I still do my knee-jerk thing about it sometimes, when my reaction is so reactionary that it proves points rather than refuting them. Oh, well; I'm human.
But what I'm learning, and what I want to model in the world, is a really different picture of what is valuable.
What do I want more; an IPod or Integrity? What do I want to teach; fighting against or standing for? What feeds me? What drains me? Only I can really know these answers for myself. This is true for each individual whether awake or asleep, whether commanding the vessel or rowing from down below decks.

Ageism? you betcha!
And I'll take the steps Ronni (and others) might suggest - the ones that fit for me. All the while, I'll be practicing unplugging, turning off, and doing my own research on what will take me closer to myself.

It's not about self-help (though I've certainly walked that road in the past), and it's not about religion or a capital G god. It's just about me and right now and being/becoming conscious of all the choices I have to make about the Who of me. What thoughts, behaviors, belief systems, and yes, things/conditions will I embrace on my way to modelling more love on this planet?

I want to embody my potential for Greatest Good. I want 'to be the change' I want to see in the world. I want peace & love to be my legacy. And if I have a sermon to preach, it's this one.

Ronni, thanks.

Free Hugs!

I posted this a week or two ago, only to find that it was taken down fromYouTube.   Now it's back and it's worth 3:39 minutes of your time (in my opinion). Read some of the comments, and about why/how this all happened... good for your heart.

Boomers and Other Radicals

They've sold us paranoia
so we choose silence
and the noise of the few washes over us.

I heard a commentator wondering about where he might find the activists of the past. The most amazing junk is going on in the political world, and here we sit...silent. Certainly silent as compared to the outcry of dissent that was heard in the Vietnam era.

I've heard myself say that I won't travel outside of this country while 'that man' is in the White House. Even while I'm speaking those words, I know that I've taken a cowardly stand. And yet...

Have we bought the paranoia? Has the current stripping of our freedoms made us 'afraid' that we'll appear on some 'list'? The lists didn't bother us in our youth; why do they silence us now? Is that what's happening?
And where are the voices of today's younger people?

Where is the outcry?!

He made me think, that commentator. He made me wonder about the balance between my spiritual path and the realities (?) of the world situation. I'll be using my vote. Things have to change. Will a change be better? or only different?

Security - Social/Internet/Other

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." -Helen Keller

Helen Keller had it right, I think; and no less so for our time than for hers.

I've been reading hither & yon about Internet security, password control, and such, and I find that she is right about computers, too.    (and just so you know - I'm not a geek. I know quite a bit about computers because I'm on one a LOT, and because I'm not afraid to poke around, and because I like search engines, and because I rarely take just one person's word for anything.)
(If you're a techno-weenie, I'm obviously not talking to you. If I'm totally wrong, I count on the geeks among my readers to point it out to me....THANKS)

Someone else (?) said that Internet security is a balance between risk and convenience. I avsolutely believe that. The trick is in learning how to weight the scales.

For today, I'm just going to offer a few tips & trivia about passwords.
I've wondered about the 'remember me' feature of browsers and many web sites. Is it really safe to have a sign in so convenient.  One is always warned about using that feature on a public computer - say the one at the library or the WiFi coffee house.

Well, for me - I'm using it at HOME. I've avoided it for years even on my home computer. The truth is, most computers are saving that info anyway. You have to go look hard to find out where some of that info is stored, and you can set your computer to 'not remember' anything.
I find information about passwords in Firefox in the 'Tools' menu under 'Options'. Things are pretty clear; you can even see exactly who has left cookies in you system. (You'll be surprised at the number.) Firefox can actually SHOW me my password list! Shock & amazement.

Internet Explorer (I have version 6) has similar info in the same place, but I find it harder to understand and interpret.

Both of these browsers have 'Page Info' in the tools menu. You can find out if pages are encrypted or certified. I checked the pages on my banks' sites, and then some random pages to see what the info contains and what's different. Interesting.

We've all seen enough on TV, or read enough to know that a real computer wizard can find out almost anything s/he wants to know if they have access to your hard drive.
Well shoot! Does that mean I have to unplug the damn thing and take the CPU with me to the grocery store to make sure some one doesn't hack me?     ...yes...
and no.
There are a few tips that can help you; I'll give you a few about passwords in a minute.

Basically, if someone really wants to know about you, they probably already do.
If you're online a LOT, you can get hacked. But usually -

...but usually what happens to us out here is some email virus or worm. They can do a ton of damage, but aren't 'personal' in the way that a peeping tom is personal.
Another trick that happens through email is that a bad guy can give you a link to click that 'looks' like something you're used to seeing: a notice from your bank, for example. The link might appear to be going to www.mycorrect&honestbank when in truth the link is sending you to a totally different scammer's site where they will ask you to type in passwords or account numbers.
I know that none of you will ever fall for that! It's been written about a lot. Email is not safe - never was - never will be. You can find tons of info on this subject with a quick google search.

I think there is no better virus protection than AVG from Grisoft.  For now, I'll just say you need to download something from the net that has frequent updates. Buying software from WalMart once a year won't do the job. The link I've given it to the Free Edition (all I've ever used). If you want more bells and whistles, there is one for home offices for about $39 US.

Now, back to passwords.
If you're like me, you have millions - or only one. Both are nasty options. If you have millions, then you have to list them somewhere either hard copy or on your computer.  That certainly won't increase security. And if you have only one - then the bad guys only have to figure out ONE.
Among the articles I've read, this approach seems to make the most sense. Some call it password zoning. It means to divide your list of passwords into 3 or 4 categories based on the degree of risk you can tolerate. Your bank accounts, of course, need your best and most secure passwords. Did you know that your main blog passwords should be in this same category? I didn't either, but we do put a lot on info into these sites.

I have 4 zones I broke down like this:

• H - highest - banks, credit accounts, e-trade, Blog, PayPal, etc.
• M- medium - shopping: Amazon, EBay, Napster, greeting card sites, etc.
• L - low - memberships that require little or very limited personal info
• J - junk - for newspapers, other people's blogs (that require sign in), data sources, etc.

With this arrangement I need only 4 passwords. Pretty neat, much easier to remember than keeping a list.

The other trick is to CHANGE THEM REGULARLY. Quarterly, for example.

Here are some articles on how to choose the best passwords:
http://netsecurity.about.com/cs/generalsecurity/a/aa112103b.htm
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1537
http://tinyurl.com/8qfkt

You can find tons more info with a google search.
I'm pooped; you can figure it out from here.
If you have questions or corrections or additions, leave a comment. Thanks. :)

Skidboot, the Wonder Dog

This dog is really amazing
...but not to be missed is the wonderful, simple, humble nature of the man who loves him.

Here's a great video. If you google 'Skidboot', you'll find lots of links; this is a good one, too.

All the news that's fit to print...

Some paths don't diverge in the woods; they converge with a trememdous clash on a 10-lane super-highway.

I'm on a spiritual quest - the over-all, overriding path/model for all that I do.

So, what do I do with the 'news'? ...with all those 'forwarded' emails? ...with gossip at karaoke?

I subscribe to quite a few blogs; I google things very often every day; I open emails from a fairly large contact list; I watch TV and a small bit of TV 'news' - and now I'm concerned about boundaries I feel that I want to set v. information so many people think I need to have.

I think that thoughts have energy - specific energy. I believe that we attract all that we need to evolve as humans on this planet. I believe that what we give our energy to grows. I believe that to the exact extent that I see the people, places, and events in my life as my teachers - to that very extent will my spirit rise.
I think that applies to jokes about Bush, virtually all of this season's political ads, TV news, and dealings with my partner, Joel, and our friends. I think that if I listen to gossip, I am exactly as responsible for its spread as the person who told me. I believe if I spend my energy on Bush & the TV news, I am co-creating the war in Iraq and participating in ordering the deaths of the (countless) victims, and that I add to the hate in the world rather than to the love in the world.

I believe that to combat hatred and war, I must focus my energy on peace and love.
I believe that to have a positive impact on the amounts of teeage drug usage, I must learn to really see teenagers and listen to them.
I believe that when I hear an ambulance, I must 'touch' it very lightly with calming, grateful thoughts for the expertise they are bringing to a situation  - and not to leap to the conclusion that disater is imminent.

I'll be looking for the tipping point for the next few days/weeks/minutes...to find that place of balance - if there is one.

For one thing, I think that I will have to make a decision to get rid on my TV habit, altogether...yes, there are some good things on that box - and I'm sure I can find a way to support them without spending money (financial energy) on all that worse-than-useless garbage that is on the damn TV for the SOLE purpose of selling me something!

So what about my responsibility to inform myself? For example, how do I cast a ballot if I refuse to vote for mud-slinging candidates?
There is a congressional race here in New Mexico that is (to me) downright embarrasing and very infuriating: the two women are much more interested in loud ads slamming each other's ethics than in speaking to the issues, at all. One is Republican; one is a Democrat. If I want anything to have a chance of being different, don't I need to choose one?

I'll welcome your input on this topic.
I'm confident that what I need to do next will be made clear; maybe even by one of you. :) cool...

More Amazing Things from Nik

Go check out the films of Nik Askew. Last week's film, "Hello Yellow Brick Road" was of particular interest to me. This week's film about business passion is wonderful.

NOTE: the links to the films may not be static (can't tell). The link to this week's is for the film-of-the-week and will point to a different film by next Monday, Oct. 2. See archives.

Passion in life - passion for life - these are very interesting concepts for me...in many areas of my life. I often wonder if the passion gene was somehow left out of my design. I'm beginning to understand some interesting things about it as I focus on spiritual evolution.

Part of what has been hard for me as I grow is the glimmer of an understanding that passion may not have a valuable place in my spiritual life. I'm reading more of Pema Chodron's work about the Seven Points of Training the Mind and am learning that a key to awakening is letting go. It seems to be about recognizing that life is a dream we walk thru. The phrase 'this too shall pass' is appropriate here...except that by the time I've had that thought, 'this' is already in the past.

I understand, now, that much of what I've missed in a spiritual experience is the passion that I felt when I was lost in the music of a Sunday service, or of the little group we had that sang for weddings and funerals, or when we gathered on the steps of the Admin. Bldg. at college and sang spontaneously - in beautiful harmonies that came so easily.
It was rarely the sermons that swept me away. Those usually brought me only pain, because it was so easy for me to identify with the 'not worthy'ness that fundamental religion teaches. Then, I could, indeed, be swept away, but it was not spiritual passion - it was deep self loathing.

So, back to passion. Can there be passion in an Eastern (Buddhist/Taoist) approach to Spirit?
So far, the only real passion I've read about is in (get this!) Buddhist Fundamentalism - and it is passion of a violent nature - synonymous with fundamentalist behavior of many religions.
We'll see, I guess, as I continue to learn & practice.

As for passion in work - well, I don't work, now. I'm retired. I fully intended to go back to work, but our sabbatical after Mom died (and while we finished the renovation of our house) was such a wonderful time. No corporate angst. None of the things that Nik's star, Neil Crofts, talked about in this week's film (link above).

What am I passionate about? I'm not sure. music, performance, food & entertaining...
I like being of service, but I find I don't work well 'in committee'.

...and so, we'll see...

Ok, I'm Back...and with a Bang!

I received an email this morning from my nephew in Wales. (for background: he grew up in a fairly  fundamental Christian home and has broadened some of his opinions as a result of travel, life experience, education, etc.) Here is what he had to say:

"A documentary prompted me to go online and find out more information about the validity of the belief in Revelation and the Rapture/Apocalypse/Tribulation, etc...
This documentary was so well researched and convincingly backed that I really bought into it. I then looked into it today on the internet to make sure it was not all just a big bias, and now more than ever I feel that those End-Timers who buy into this doomsday theory are not only incredibly misled, but very very dangerous.
Their influence on the White House and its foreign policy is why there is so much unrest in the Middle East and why AIDS in Africa may never be subdued. As long as their influence carries on in the running of America the enormous problems across the globe from civil injustice to global warming will never be cured.
Furthermore, they are not only refusing to aid in furthering peace and protecting our environment, they are hastening the negative outcome of both as they think that the quicker global warming takes effect and the sooner all-out war breaks out, the sooner they will be magically zapped to heaven and the rest of the world who do not buy into the closed, literal interpretation of a specific translation of the book of Revelation, will be left on the earth to endure the worst tribulation the world has ever known.
I'm hoping that the current attitude we are experiencing is directly linked to the ignorant, mildly insane man we have running the country and that it is not too much more deep-seated than his administration. If that is the case, our next president may bring some hope.
I am a Christian, though I feel my personal faith is entirely irrelevant to this global problem we are facing with Christian Extremists with their concentrated voice in America. Please go to http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/doomsday.html for more information on this."

So, naturally, I went there. There is some extremely interesting reading in several places on that site. This is their home page. They are a station for Public Broadcast - a not-for-profit; I like that.
Here's a good article on The Fundamentalists (seems every religion has them, and they may have begun with American Christians). This article mentions that there are also militant & violent Bhuddists - not something that delights me, but not unexpected either. There is a very concise religion TimeLine here.

This should be great material for discussion.

This is fundamentalism as defined by The Free Dictionary: "A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism." Meaning #2 attributes its origination to American Evangelicals at the turn of the 19th century.

Words like 'organized', 'militant', 'rigid', 'intolerance', & the phrase, 'insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture' are aspects of this point of view that I find very scary. They speak to me of closed minds, and worse yet - closed hearts. Instead of saying something like, "this is the truth FOR ME and it brings me hope and peace - would you like to hear about it?", they say things like 'This is THE TRUTH and you will believe it or you will die, and if I have to, I'll kill you with my own hands."

I think it is this that Alan was speaking about in his email (above). Many fundamentalists in our country are indeed organized and militant and they have the ear of our President. This is scary to me. Lots of things about religion and politics in today's world are scary to me. The MOST scary is that place where religion and politics become mixed, as they are now.

Now - more than ever, perhaps - it's time to open our eyes and pay attention. Or maybe I should say 'now or never' because one of these days we may not have a choice.

Poetic Tribute/Comment

Please go NOW to Paris Parfait and read Tara's poem in regard to Sept. 11.

I've been avoiding mention of that day for tons of reasons. I may not be able to continue doing so...but for now, read this.

yes, now.

Political Races & the Mud Factor

There is a House of Rep. seat in NM for which two women are running. Their ads have been running for weeks, now. So far, there has been NOT ONE SINGLE AD that addressed issues only. EVERY AD has thrown mud. That's all. Just mud. Two Women! Ok, maybe that's extreme - the mud in each ad is flavored by some issue...but that still does not make them palatable. And to have this sort of campaining coming from two WOMEN makes me doubly mad.  AARRRRRGH!

A sister blogger, Janet, reminded me of this site that may be useful to you in the upcoming election season; please check it out. FactCheck.org  When I first found them I did some Internet research and found them to be who they claim to be: fact-checkers. Believe me, you're going to need them. And they report on both sides.

Additionally, I strongly encourage you to get your news from more than one source (and I do NOT mean 2 different TV networks)!

A quick Note AFTER the commercial...

You ALL know that a site ending in .com is a commercial site, right?! Even .orgs have sales pages.

I know my readers are smart and savvy. I've just become really tired of commercials that try to sound like public service messages, especially those pushing drugs, etc.
Today I explored a site advertising knowledge about menopause. It is NOT a bad site.
I just wonder who's going there and if those people are clear that this .com is owned by a drug company whose purpose it is to sell drugs and pay profits to stockholders. This site does NOT hide its identity; it doesn't scream it out in banner ads, either. And, it is fairly dismissive of natural treatments for menopausal symptoms. The site I looked at is better than its commercial for it, I think. AND it is slanted to sell drugs, not to leave you fully informed.

You can go to a site called Network Solutions and click on 'whois' to find out who owns or registered almost any site. That's a small button in a horizontal list just below the blue bordered box.

In our culture - the American Culture of Sell/Spend/Buy/MoneyistheMeasure - it is wise to look for the real name of the 'person' talking to you. Look for the "About Us" page. Pay attention. Gather information from more than one source.

Caveat emptor -  The axiom or principle in commerce that the buyer alone is responsible for assessing the quality of a purchase before buying.

Feast or Famine - Literally

(Originally posted to www.katethoughts.blogspot.com on 8.24.06)

Remember the post about the closing of the forest?  Well, it's open now. We've had rain.
I mean RAIN!

The data I've found so far shows that all of this year's rainfall (every day) is setting records. If I'm reading it correctly, one map on Wunderground proves that. Last year's rainfall doesn't even show for most days because there wasn't any.

This year the state is experiencing flooding in places that haven't seen water in years. People are being driven from homes in low-lying areas, entire villages were temporarily cut off from the rest of the world because their roads were washed out or covered in rocks/boulders washed down from above. Thankfully, crews get on that sort of thing quickly here.
Ruidoso has been fairly lucky unless you live in a couple of trailer parks near the river (which is actually a river now, and not just a tiny creek). And when we consider tsunamis and hurricanes and broken levees, then Ruidoso is not unlike living in heaven.

I said all of that, to say this...
When we step WAY back and get a little perspective, is there not some global balance in all of this? Is that too long a view? Can I be compassionate about the individuals who suffer from weather catastrophies and famine and wars and still remain spiritually in balance and aware of a 'bigger' balance? Does the bigger balance really exist?

I think so.
Those of you who garden might understand this analogy.
Things die in your garden: bugs or disease attack the roses, the neighbor's dog digs up the petunias, your gutter overflowed last summer and drowned the whatever...

Do you still have a nice garden? Don't you still enjoy it? Isn't it still the place you go for solace, for something to nurture, for some quiet time and a sense of 'getting back to the earth'?
Have you ever experienced these events or conditions and thought, 'wow, god is out to get me', or 'I guess I'm not supposed to have a garden', or 'what am I doing wrong'?

I think of things like this. And I wonder if I have any compassion at all, sometimes.
I read the stories of real famine in SO many parts of the world, places that have no soil, no rain, no systems of irrigation, where generations have survived on the edge of starvation. I think of the thousands of truckloads of food and supplies that have been sent, with no real change whatsoever in the number of people still starving. In fact, the numbers seem to be actually growing. I've just spent about an hour 'googling' world hunger, starving populations, statistics on death by malnutrition, etc. The numbers are stagering. One article says 852 million people across the world are hungry, up from 842 million a year ago: a 10,000,000 (that's ten MILLION) increase in 1 year. I think of hungry little girls hanging on to mom, who have grown up to be hungry mothers holding on to their sweet little hungry children. And I think of the cantalope that I forgot, and let spoil, and threw out yesterday....
There are literally hundreds of organizations whose purpose is to feed hungry people. Why are the numbers growing?

I'm just asking...

Read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Is it the answer? I don't know; certainly, maybe ONE of the answers. It makes sense to me.

Can I find my compassion? What do I do with it?
I give things to my local food bank. I don't give anything to organizations trying to address hunger in areas that cannot support food production where the people are. I'll donate to buy a goat or dig a well...
Sometimes I think I'm really cold-cold-cold.
Sometimes I think like Daniel: when the food supply diminishes the population of the animals/humans who eat that food diminishes - as it should. As it does in all other animal species.

I'm just asking...

Personal Responsibility - Where Has It Gone?

(Originally posted to www.katethoughts.blogspot.com on 8.26.06)

In the news recently...

This was about ringing cell phones in a courtroom gallery and no one (all adults) willing to say, "It was me, Judge, I apologize".

Wonder if they've learned anything. Wonder if they have kids.