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Archive for the ‘Children’ Category

Making a difference: Tabitha USA Update

Posted in Cambodia, Children, Family, History, tagged , , on September 27, 2011| 3 Comments »

An end-of-year update from one of the most effective organizations on the ground in any country …

Dear friends and partners,

Today is the last day of our program year and what a year it has been. We had so many goals – so much we wanted to do. We had so many dreams we wanted to achieve – dreams that each of you made happen.

Let me share some of our highlights.

This year our goal was to work with and reach out to 42,545 families with 340,228 dependents – we ended the year with 43,546 families with 348,368 dependents – we worked with another 358 families in cottage industry. It is a remarkable achievement.

Our goal for our New Year starting this week is to reach out to 59,140 families with 473,120 dependents. Together we can do it.

The core of our program is savings: 90% of acute poverty is attitudinal – a mindset created by any number of factors – for our families it has been 40 years of war and genocide. It results in despair – an inability to think ahead – to plan for the future – what is the use – I will lose all anyway. It results in an often heard slogan from our families – we are bad – a statement that reflects
their inability to grasp the loss of so much in their lives.

Savings breaks down the attitude for savings involves people starting dreams – achievable dreams – it involves saying they are worth something – no matter how insignificant we think that something is. It involves action, for the people must give of their own money – it involves people standing with them, cheering them on – it involves achieving those dreams and making new ones.

Their initial savings isn’t much – usually .25 cents a week – but those little bits of money grow into big money – our families saved $2,037,313.90 this year but what is the miracle is the purchase and life changes brought about – they purchased $10,919,450.00 worth of goods and services. Savings works – for families pull together all their resources to make a positive change in their lives – we as Tabitha staff are cheerleaders, encouraging and celebrating each achievement.

The families say to us – you helped us to think again. The attitude has changed. It is so very good.

We talked about our impacts on families – we always start with basic necessities of which eating better food is a key marker – in our newest expansion areas people eat only once a day – rice and whatever insect’s people can scavenge from the fields. This year 27,907 families were able to achieve better food. I asked the managers what that meant – it means people are eating two to three meals a day which are balanced with vegetables and fruit daily and meat and fish at least twice a week. As we were talking, I asked how much do you think that costs a day say for a family of 8 – the universal answer was $5.00 a day – we started multiplying the numbers – families eating
times day times cost in a year and the end figure boggled our minds -over 50 million dollars worth – it is teaching all of us about the micro economics of food.

13,129 families are moving towards food security with their ability to purchase 3 months supply of rice. All of our families were able to purchase basics such as clothing, sleeping mats, beds, tables and chairs, pots and pans, mosquito nets and much more.

Water and its life giving strength – we were enabled to install 2015 sources of water – with over 1000 hectares of land put under year round cultivation – earning our families an average of $500.00 US per month – or $6,000.00 per year up from the low of $300.00 per year.

In Income generation, especially in agriculture and fishing – 18,728 families were able to raise animals such as pigs, chickens, ducks, cows, etc.. Another 18,893 families were able to grow crops such as rice and vegetables year round – it is so very good.

We talked about the number of school aged children in our program- in the communes where we work – and how many got to attend school this year. We had a dream to build 7 schools and we ended up building 14 schools. We talked about the impact it has on the children in our program. In our new areas, an average of one child per family is able to go to school – in areas where we are in mid – program – the average is 3 out of the five – in the areas where we built our schools – it is 4 out of the 5 children. This year we enabled 120,878 children to attend school for the first time.

Our dream this past year was to have 55 teams come and build 950 houses – we had 97 teams come with 2,425 volunteers come and help build 1,182 houses for our families. It is so very good – The volunteers become friends and supporters – people who have a deeper understanding of poverty and its impact on people.

It has been an amazing year – a year of being blessed and giving blessings. I thank my God for this privilege. I thank my God for the staff and for each of you who have made so much happen this year. I pray that our dreams for the next year will bear much fruit for those whom we serve.

Janne

Tabitha USA was established in 2003 to provide funding and support for Tabitha Cambodia, a humanitarian NGO in Cambodia. Our mission is to improve the lives of people living in poverty in Cambodia. We seek to raise funds to support Tabitha Cambodia’s community development efforts, which include a savings program, house-building, digging water wells, and building schools. Tabitha USA is an official IRS 501 (c)(3) non profit organization that grants all donations tax-exempt status.

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Celebrating Raksha Bandhan

Posted in Children, Family, History, love, tagged , , , on August 13, 2011| 5 Comments »

Sam and Cj on the eve of Raksha Babdhan

Today is the 13th of August, but it is also, according to the Hindu lunisolar calendar, Shravan Poornima … the full moon day of the month of Shravan … time to celebrate Raksha Bandhan.

Raksha Bandhan (Hindi: रक्षाबंधन, Punjabi: ਰਕਸ਼ਾਬੰਧਨ, Urdu: رکشا بندھن the bond of protection), or Rakhi (Hindi: राखी, Punjabi: ਰਾਖੀ, Urdu: راکھی), is a festival primarily observed in North India, which celebrates the relationship between brothers and sisters. The festival is observed by Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. The central ceremony involves the tying of a rakhi (sacred thread) by a sister on her brother’s wrist. This symbolizes the sister’s love and prayers for her brother’s well-being, and the brother’s lifelong vow to protect her.

I have to wonder why such an important occasion hasn’t managed to spread more widely, as a celebration of the bonds between brothers and sisters is noticeably lacking in most of the world, a reality that undervalues a relationship that should be extolled, rhapsodized and encouraged toward its great potential.

As a thread in the fabric of society, the tensile strength of the tie linking sister to brother has the capacity to weave a structure than can stand strong against much that will rip the loosely knitted to shreds, but today the apparent impetus is to sever this particular attachment.

Too often it seems competition between siblings is created as a tool in families where divide and conquer props a power base or love and acceptance are doled out in doses. Pitted against each other, weakness can be manipulated, strength may morph into bullying and an every-child-for-himself mentality can result contributing greatly to the ME, ME, ME issues discussed in yesterday’s post.

Sibling rivalry has become an accepted component of family life in many cultures, an expected reaction …

David Levy introduced the term “sibling rivalry” in 1941, claiming that for an older sibling “the aggressive response to the new baby is so typical that it is safe to say it is a common feature of family life.”

Is there a question as to why brother/sister relationships aren’t celebrated in an atmosphere of anticipated conflict? Not according to this article in Psychology Today:

Western culture has an obsession with sibling rivalry that began with the story of Cain and Abel and was elaborated by Freud, who labeled and dwelt on the competition between siblings for parental love and attention. It’s colored our perception of sibship ever since. Therapists and lay people alike tend to view the relationship largely as one of struggle and controversy. We have no rituals that make, break, or celebrate the sibling bond. And family experts have underemphasized the sibling relationship, instead concentrating on parents and children and husbands and wives. Small wonder that sibling rivalry is accepted as the normal state of affairs.

More than a world apart are the views of western culture –Cain and Able and Sigmund — from the roots that celebrate the connection:

Raksha Bandhan was a ritual followed by Lord Yama (the Lord of Death) and his sister Yamuna, (the river in northern India). Yamuna tied rakhi to Yama and bestowed immortality. Yama was so moved by the serenity of the occasion that he declared that whoever gets a rakhi tied from his sister and promised her protection, will become immortal.

How incredibly sad it is that so many of us were never shown the path that was wide enough to walk together, but rather steered toward a harder, lonelier road where independence was valued over attachment to those who should be our closest allies, the sharers of our history, fellow inmates in the involuntary incarceration a family can represent.

Could it be that something as simple as incorporating a ceremony into our culture, a commemoration of the value of brothers and sisters, might teach us to treasure the ties and accept the significance of very real bonds?

It certainly couldn’t hurt.

With that thought, we’re observing Raksha Bandhan and encouraging others to take advantage of the day to celebrate threads too often forgotten.

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.
~ Susan Scarf Merrell

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Giving rights of passage with no rites …

Posted in Children, England, Family, Hopeful thoughts, News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2011| 7 Comments »

CCTV imageMy attention spans a couple of topics today I find related, although the tie might be a stretch for some.

Beginning with the recent spate of riots in the UK …

There’s been no little finger pointing going on as London burns and sparks spread to other cities. As there seems little at the root of the “unrest” other than greed and boredom being acted out by some with no other agenda apparent, nothing less than a breakdown of society is cited as a major factor.

As my Yorkshire friend A.j. put it:

A few highly educated idiots got together and rewrote the book on parenting…and now we are reaping the results, nobody dared burn down the village before… This is the first of many. Kids have always pushed the boundaries to see what they can get away with, well now they know…

This was in response to an African proverb posted on Facebook that addressed the situation from an interesting angle:

If the young men are not initiated into the community, they will burn down the village – just to feel its warmth.

While some may consider the masked youths overusing their Zippos and grabbing everything they can marginalized, disenfranchised, others would argue the reverse; that they have been MAXinalized and franchised to within an inch of their lives, spoiled and pampered, steeped in excess with no requirement to contribute.

In trying to look from both sides, I have to admit to a problem with the first take. Of course there are issues of poverty, racial tensions, employment problems, the unequal distribution of wealth and goodies. Yep. Life is much harder for some than for others.

In a country where education and health care are free and food, clothing and shelter are provided with very little work required, endless bitching about how tough things are is disingenuous at best, and those who feel marginalized … and react violently to their plight … because they don’t have the very latest version of BlackBerry should be slapped.

The should-be-slapped contingent is well represented at the moment, as evidenced by the these charmers arrested in Manchester …

An 11-year-old girl, a woman with 96 previous convictions and the daughter of a successful businessman were among hundreds of defendants appearing before magistrates on Thursday in the wake of the recent riots and looting.

Add the ” … university graduate who had been pursuing a career in social work …” who boosted a TV, a ” … a 21-year-old law student … ” who trashed a restaurant …” and this brat …

On Wednesday undergraduate Laura Johnson, 19, was granted bail by magistrates in Bexley, south-east London, on five counts of burglary in connection with the theft of goods from stores in south London.

The former grammar school pupil achieved four A*s and nine As at GCSE and is the daughter of a successful businessman who owns a large detached farmhouse in Orpington, south-east London, according to reports.

…

and the idea presents that an opportunistic lack of sense and morals pops up pretty easily in the don’t give a shit minds of far too many.

But, then again, why wouldn’t it?

Giving a shit is something that must be learned, and to be learned it must be taught. If the reason for education is getting a high-paying job so one can buy all the goodies one could wish for, what’s to stop a university grad from the snatch and run? If the lack of such goodies is considered a personal failure, how can it matter where the plasma screen, the iPad or the BlueRay player came from? If one’s position in a community is determined by the amount of cool stuff one collects and respect is conveyed by accumulated property, what possible difference can it make if the wardrobe and gadgets were filched?

No more, of course, than it matters if a media tycoon lies and cheats or a powerful leader violates the human rights of his people.

In a ME, ME, ME world there’s no need for thoughts for the good of US, of the society, the community, but it’s not sustainable, not on this planet. It’s too small and there’s too many MEs, and, as we’ve seen, when that ME wants what another ME has things can get ugly.

The need for community is real, and it is strong. We’re not a solitary-living species, but programed through our DNA to live in societies. It seems, however, that we’re losing the knowledge of how to do that well, and it may be worth the time to rethink some of the methods of bonding as a community we’ve lost.

The initiation idea appeals, but does not mean some sort of group hug.

Initiation is a rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components.

A rite of passage … hm.

No mutilation, please, but humanity would not suffer from a training and testing ground between childhood and assuming the rights of an adult.

As Mircea Eliade put it when listing reasons and functions of initiation, they are …

“this real valuation of ritual death finally led to conquest of the fear of real death.”

“[initiation’s] function is to reveal the deep meaning of existence to the new generations and to help them assume the responsibility of being truly men and hence of participating in culture.”

“it reveals a world open to the trans-human, a world that, in our philosophical terminology, we should call transcendental.”

“to make [the initiand] open to spiritual values.”

In other words, it teaches the rules, the reasons for rules, and makes sure those who go through the process understand. If they don’t, they don’t get to play.

In most non-human primate societies, sub-adults … teenagers … are the most repressed, ignored and controlled group. Males that haven’t shown their worth don’t get sex and have the crap beaten out of them when they get out of line. If they’re mean to the little ones … which they rarely are knowing the consequences as they do … they’re in big trouble. Their mothers brook no shit, their fathers keep them in line and they learn to find their own food, make their own nests, form alliances, share, and generally prepare to be contributing members of their group.

They may be as big and strong as adults, but they’re not as smart, and until they learn what must be learned they are cut no slack at all.

Sounds sensible.

Which brings me to my second thought of the day … a meeting of the Committee on the Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research happening now in D.C..

Spurned by a Congressional request last year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) asked the IOM to form a committee that would evaluate the current and future need for federally funded research on chimpanzees – increasingly controversial in the public eye and legal in only one other country, Gabon. The committee held an introductory meeting in May, but got to the heart of the issues today, the first of the two-day meeting.

I have no doubt there will come a time when using chimps in research will be considered as much an abomination as the “studies” conducted on concentration camp inmates by the Nazis, and have hopes meetings like this will move that scenario forward.

“We wouldn’t be having this meeting if ethics wasn’t an issue,” said primate researcher Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who detailed his behavioral research. Goodall enthusiastically described her field research and its benefits for the health of wild chimpanzees. But she does not support the use of chimpanzees held in labs, which she says are like prisons to them.

Like us, chimps have social living programed into their DNA. Like us, they’re meant to live in communities. Unlike us, they don’t run the show. Unlike us, their kids don’t foul the nest.

It will serve us well to remember that our community is our planet, that we share it with many others … and that everything isn’t about ME, ME, ME. We knew this once, but seem to have lost the wisdom somewhere between being part of something bigger and thinking life isn’t worth living without that new BlackBerry.

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“Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children.” ~ Marilyn Penland

Posted in Children, Family, love, My Chinese Checkered Past on August 10, 2011| 17 Comments »

“If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

On this day in 1969 I gave birth to my first child. I had just turned 18 a few days before and although I had managed pregnancy and birth quite well my first face-to-face with my beautiful daughter was daunting.

After counting toes and fingers and conducting all the perfunctory checks new mothers feel compelled to perform since no one’s word will do until perfection has been established for oneself, I knew I had to fess up, and straightaway.

Holding her closely, I gazed into her lovely, aware eyes and declared: I have no idea how to be a mother, will probably screw up miserably and often … but will do the very best I can.

I have frequently repeated a version of this that insists she has grown into the woman she is — successful, happy, secure, sensible, beautiful, smart, funny and so much more — not because of, but in spite of me.

She agrees with that in some fashion, deciding long ago not to follow in any of my staggering footsteps, but rather forge a determined path of her own, one that intentionally avoided the pits I toppled into, scrabbled over obstacles and built bridges rather than burned them.

Her efforts have been rewarded. She is amazing, and she is happy.

The gift I gave the world this day 42 years ago was a contribution significant enough to validate my existence, and is the gift that keeps on giving as her daughter carries it forward.

Happy birthday, Pooh.

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“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” ~Satchel Paige

Posted in Children, Expat Living, Family, History, Island life, On getting older, Seychelles, tagged , , on June 26, 2011| 7 Comments »

Wiki Image

A bit of backseat kid talk overheard by Gay as she drove them home from school the other day:

Cj: Do you know about phones with circles? There are places for your finger, and you spin the circle around.

Sam: Yeah. Those are from the olden days.

Cj: How did they work?

Sam: I have no idea …

Seems time has been passing.

While I’ve been spending recent years surrounded by kids and kidults, water has been flowing rapidly under my bridge and the damned dam designed to deny the dribbling drip of days into decades has apparently sprung a leak and allowed splashes of senescence to wear the bloody thing away.

In other words, it’s now dawning on me that I’m old. Good timing, I suppose, since I have a birthday looming, but I could do without all the reminders.

Rotary phones, TVs that required a trip across the room to turn on and off, handwritten letters, Thomas Guides in spiral-bound form are all items that may now require explanation and illicit comments about the “olden days” when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the only way to see a photo without a trip to a lab and a wait of a week was with a Polaroid.

Living where I do I am limited to how much of the modern world I’ve actually seen and still find myself wondering “What the heck does that doohicky do?” when confronted by many items others take for granted already.

Yes, the speaking GPS in cars puts me in mind of HAL … we don’t have those here, as that would just be silly on an island 17 miles long and 4 miles wide … and I’ve not yet come around to loading some of the apps available for my iPad that might make life easier, but can’t be bothered to learn how to use.

I can be comforted by how much hasn’t seen some of the predicted changes we’d been led to believe would leave us in the dust. Since flying cars, robot maids, beds that pop you up like toast and other Jetsons / Carousel of Progress stuff haven’t been incorporated into daily life, we aging Boomers do manage to get along.

Although Sam and Cj may find it had to believe, airplanes, vacuum cleaners and televisions are all pretty much what they were when I was a kid. Blenders still blend the way they did, dentists continue to pull teeth out with forceps, babies come out of mommy’s tummies, cars move along on tires, and it still takes almost two days to get from LAX to Seychelles.

Heck! If I somehow instantly transported from my teen years to present day even much of my wardrobe would look like the latest thing …

Can we tell I still have more than a month before my calendar clicks over to a new decade? Yes … we can.

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For Father’s Day

Posted in Children, Family, History, Loss, My Chinese Checkered Past, Poetry, tagged on June 19, 2011| 11 Comments »

Dad on a cow ... 1930

Amos M. Hanks
1924- 1992

I miss him most days.

Here’s something I wrote for his funeral:

I’ve known, I think since birth,
that my father knew everything.
Not that he cluttered his mind with sports scores
or directions to places he didn’t go often.

To the contrary, he knew only the most vital of bits
and these he shared with me generously:
how to load and use a rifle safely,
proper application of a semicolon,
operation of a motor vehicle in a drive-in parking lot,
the ability to identify seven different breeds of cattle,
the definition of the lyrics of Waltzing Matilda,
self-reliance,
an appreciation of the world’s great literature (and the KIngston Trio),
how to use my mind,
to turn in a badly dealt hand and demand new cards,
a sense of history,
HIS history,
how to properly cook a turkey, a white sauce and French pancakes,
how to swear well and effectively,
the paths of the constellations,
a connection a with the earth and with time,
the merits of good sense and honesty,
and so much more.

I am, I think, one-fourth him, one-fourth my mother and half what I have accumulated on my own.
The divisions are not apparent.

He has said he fathered recklessly.
His recklessness is only one aspect of the man.
I love them all
and all of him.
He’s my dad.

The part of me that writes is a gift from him …

A Song of a Chela

I began to be when time began
And the Wheel of All began to spin
I am one the the One that has always been

I have lived my way through the seven worlds,
Coming, going, returning again,
In shapes and forms man cannot know
And in all that this world has seen come and go:
In the bodies of things in the slippery muck
And slime of the sea and the swamp,
In reptilian things with leather wings,
In sharp toothed, heavy limbed, truculent,
Dim brained beasts of the steamy lands
Before the Wheel had turned to man.

I have lived in trees and caves and castles,
An eater of berries, a killer of mammoth,
Slave and prophet, poet and king,
Harlot and hunter and priestess and warrior –
Whatever the Wheel in turning might bring.

I helped in creating Jehovah and Allah,
Brahma and Baal and those of Olympus;
I served in their temples and bled on their alters,
Tortured their martyrs and died in their names.

I have helped in the building of civilizations
And fought in the wars that returned them to dust.
I have learned all the wisdoms and done all the labors
And seen all the beauties and known all the lust.

I shall still be when time shall end
And the Wheel of All shall begin again;
I am one with the One that will never end.

~Amos Hanks, 1947

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“Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.” ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater

Posted in Children, Gay rights, International Adoption, News, Sex, The United Nations, Women's rights, World politics, tagged , on June 18, 2011| 9 Comments »

Let’s hear it for the United Nations and their brave and “historic step” to pass a resolution supporting “equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation” … or let’s not.

Suzanne Nossel, deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations, told CNN, “It really is a key part in setting a new norm that gay rights are human rights and that that has to be accepted globally.”

“It talks about the violence and discrimination that people of LGBT persuasion experience around the world,” she said, “and that those issues … need to be taken seriously. It calls for reporting on what’s going on, where people are being discriminated against, the violence that is taking place, and it really puts the issue squarely on the U.N.’s agenda going forward.”

Woopie fuckin’ zoopie doo.

Anyone with a lick of sense and a brush with recent history will get what a limp dick sits squarely on the UN’s fat ass agenda. Take, for example, the great job done in Sudan, the effectiveness of their “Racism Forum” that featured “that wonder of gentle tolerance, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Holocaust denier extraordinaire”, and the “Climate Change Summit” in Copenhagen that did such wonders for promoting the case of prostitution but little else, then the one in Cancun that accomplished even more bugger all.

“Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it.” ~ Winston Churchill

Subtract from all the job they’ve done … or not … in protecting children in places like the “Democratic Republic of Congo, in Haiti, infant mortality in general, female genital mutilation and the rights of children and women to education and a normal lifespan.

It all rather pulls one hand away from any applause the United Nations gigantic PR machine solicits with statements like:

Friday’s vote “marks a victory for defenders of human rights,” said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “It sends a clear message that abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity must end.”

Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping? No. Me neither. But that doesn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the bullshit spreading one little bit …

Nossel told CNN, “it’s not like discrimination or violence are going to end overnight” because of the U.N. resolution, “but now … when there are proposals in parliaments or legislatures around the world to illegalize gay activity or repress people because of their sexual orientation, opponents can point to this and say, ‘Hey, the U.N. has spoken out, there is a resolution that rejects this squarely.’

“That is the way these international norms are built,” she said. “It’s not from scratch. On women’s rights, on minority rights, it builds up over time. So this is really a critical beginning of a universal recognition of a new set of rights that forms part of the international system.”

International norms? New set of rights? International system?

Go ahead … pull the other one.

The UN does have a place and a purpose; the place is New York … and Geneva … and on First Class seats toward Five Star hotel rooms in some of the poshest places on the planet. The purpose is to keep a bunch of people highly-paid, well-dressed and traveling while seeing the sights from lily-white convoys of SUVs …

“Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose. Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

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Hanging On

Posted in Children, Family, Island life, Loss, Music I like, Nature, science, Seychelles, tagged , , , , on June 14, 2011| 5 Comments »

Tonight's sunset.

I think of my son often, and on evenings alone on the veranda watching the sunset he comes to mind in a way that always makes me smile.

The opening line of one of Jaren’s songs, “Swedish Nutball”, resonates as the sun sinks way too fast into the western sky.

I can feel the rotation of the earth …

I pretty much stop right there, as the rest of the lyrics aren’t exactly conducive to contemplating a lovely end to a day, but there is no doubt I do … feel the rotation of the earth.

Those who’ve never seen the face of Sol plunge at speed into that end of the ocean called Horizon near the Equator are missing one of our planet’s best thrill rides.

From the first kiss of sun to sea to the last wink of brightness over Horizon’s lip all of about 4 minutes pass … the sucker drops like a stone, so fast there is no question or quibbling over just how fast this globe we’re stuck to spins. Whooooooosh!

I own a vast amount of E tickets for this ride and try not to miss it as it comes around almost exactly every twenty-four hours, year in and year out. Being four degrees south of the North/South dividing line, the time varies by no more than a few minutes. Rather than longer days and shorter nights, or vice versa, we in the middle just see the sunset swing from one area of ocean to another, then back over the course of the year. (Google “Declination” if you’re interested, as for some reason the link won’t post.)

Most days I sit and watch, either a cup of tea or glass of wine at hand, but sometimes I do choose to stand for the event. Staring at our star as it does its dip, the beautifully illustrated awareness of how bloody fast this planet spins, can almost make me dizzy.

I live on the west coast of Mahé, a situation I love since it gives me this drama rather than the early morning show of the sun doing his impression of a Pop-Tart emerging from a toaster.

I tend to avoid the bugger as much as possible during that chariot ride it takes across the sky, seeing as how fried is not my best look, but when I see him heading toward the high dive to prepare for the plunge I will drop what I’m doing to watch the form, the style and the amazing ovation the sky and clouds give once he’s gone and the way that echos across the ocean.

That the show is all mine is special, but sharing the ride makes it even better.

Here’s Jaren NOT singing about sunsets …

And, yes, what I’m thinking now, he thought of first.

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Going to the dogs …

Posted in Children, Family, Friends, Island life, My Chinese Checkered Past, News, tagged on June 12, 2011| 12 Comments »

There are some days a blog topic just can’t be avoided, no matter what. Like that proverbial sack full of nickels that whacks me upside the head from time to time, something will jump up, then hang on like a chihuahua on a cuff and not let go.

This is one of those days, and doggone it if I’m not going to bite. The news has gone to the dogs cheek by jowl and there have been no few personal nips as well.

I’ll start with this really annoying bit from the NYT:

Don’t call her a guard dog. When she costs $230,000, as Julia did, the preferred title is “executive protection dog.” This 3-year-old German shepherd, who commutes by private jet between a Minnesota estate and a home in Arizona, belongs to a canine caste that combines exalted pedigree, child-friendly cuddliness and arm-lacerating ferocity.

Great. Now, thanks to Navy Seals, Bin Laden and the kennel ration of crap that comes with, designer dogs have been elevated to a whole new breed.

I’m all for well trained canines who do a job, as those pampered pets like Leona Helmsley’s intended $12 mil pouch are notoriously useless.

Yes, that millionaire lapdog is now in doggie heaven, a circumstance I’m guessing was quite traumatic for the minder-of-Maltese for all these years. I’d venture a guess that pup wasn’t offered any easy exit, but lived until the last possible pant.

Being as I am dogged in my determination to revert to my previous puppy-less state, I’m about done with the creature that came to me just post-eye-opening requiring three-hourly feeds and poop scooping. Yes, Lady Gaga Snowball will very soon be shifted to Andy’s house … as soon as I can find him and do the hand-over. I know some were convinced I’d fall under her spell, but I’m dog tired these days and not subject to the charms of chewed shoes and having my house TP-ed. I’m also not big on another set of slobbery flews and four more muddy feet, so call me a hardhearted cur if you like, but the pooch is soon to be passed.

More significantly, I’m haunted today by a Ghost of Dog Past … a small black mongrel who came to our family when I was about three I dubbed Snowball.

There’s almost too much to tell about Snowball, being that he was my first dog in a long line of four-legged family members, but some of his story packs most of the weight in the sack of nickels prompting this post.

Just yesterday a friend on Facebook resorted to social networking about what he saw as a shocking observation … a gay dog.

I took it upon myself to illuminate, explaining that homosexuality is common in most species, and that I once had a gay dog … the aforementioned Snowball.

This morning I awoke to find a message on my fb fan page from a woman I haven’t seen since I was about 9-years-old, a childhood friend and neighbor who just happened to own a dog … his name was Sam, if I remember correctly … who died in front of all of the whole court because of Snowball’s ardor. (My dog had hers pinned as the ice cream truck made its rounds and … well … it wasn’t pretty.)

I am thrilled to have Sue back in my life after 50 years and have so many memories I would be happy to share, but can’t quite get myself to face again the fact that my dog killed her dog back when we were five.

I’m sure we’ll get through this.

Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that is how dogs spend their lives. ~Sue Murphy

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Can’t do the Weiner, so let’s talk about death …

Posted in Children, Hopeful thoughts, Loss, love, Religion, science, tagged on June 10, 2011| 9 Comments »

More than just crude matter ... ?

Although I’ve been gnawing on the Weiner thing for a few days, as the story keeps spurting I’m not quite lubricated enough to bring a post to whatever climax the tale deserves, so today I’m sliding away from it and onto something completely different.

What happens when you die?

There are numbers of reasons this question prays on my mind right now, involved as I am with the dead, the dying, survivors and inquiring minds, so I’ve been giving the guaranteed outcome of life a good deal of thought lately.

There are, of course, a hell of a lot of theories, and any number of them make a lot of sense when contemplated from one direction or another, and I tend to go through the list from time to time, not that I expect much of any answer until my time comes.

That, in fact, is one of the possibilities … that at the moment the bucket is kicked we become enlightened. In shuffling off this mortal coil (Hamlet – iii. i. 67) all the information kept from us during our lifetimes is once more available … it being either more than we can bear while busy drawing breath or outside the “need-to-know” limits that coil thing bars us from catching on to … and suddenly it all makes sense.

From what lessons we were supposed to learn to why we died a certain way, we see the patterns, the reasons, and judge for ourselves how well we did … and what classes we may have to repeat.

Another involves a “higher power” who does the judging for us, then sends us off toward either eternal damnation or an infinity of happy harp-strumming. Although very popular, this one doesn’t fly with me, as there seems to be something ungodly petty about condemnation after only one short course, and even those who manage to hang around for 100 years have still only managed an eye-blink of time in the big picture.

There is also the idea that when we die, we’re just dead. The staunch atheistic approach insisting we are biological beings, pure and simple; we’re born, we live, we die and that’s that.

It makes a lot of sense and science goes a long way to back this up. Every week there’s some new study out on some biochemical process that causes dishonesty or various personality traits or love or the inability to love (And I’m sorry, but I’m so not in the frame of mind to dig up links to this stuff right now, so if you’re looking for references try Google.)

This could very well be exactly the case, but it seems rather pointless.

Not only pointless to live a lifetime with worries of no more than doing your bit to ingest enough nutrients to reproduce … the prime biological mandate … but also to assume the position that this is all there is … ever.

It also seems a rather unimaginative stance.

I prefer something that could include parallel universes and essence of being that is made up of energy, rather than flesh and bone and brain. An existence that doesn’t begin and end with … and, okay, I admit I’m quoting Yoda here, but that little guy made a point I like … “this crude matter”.

If crude matter is the be all and end all, the point escapes me, and if there is no point … well, there is no point. If being dead amounts to no more than compost we’ll certainly not be aware of that state of having become, and I guess that’s okay, too. It does rather put the kibosh on any growth and learning and leaving a mark, though, if the only mark to be left could be called skid.

There is either a reason for being born, for living and for dying that goes beyond making more to be born, live and die, or there isn’t, and it seems a flagrant waste of energy if that’s the whole circle. Fleeting moments of joy, plunges into the depths of suffering, decades of acquiring knowledge, flashes of brilliance, art, music, literature, war, starvation, cruelty, benevolence … all the stuff we get up to that plants don’t … they seem to indicate we might expect something more.

On the science front, it’s pretty clear that although at any given moment in time the answers seem set in stone they aren’t and new discoveries come up. Is it possible one day it will be scientifically proven that we are, indeed, luminous beings encased, for a while, in this crude matter? That we are here as we are for reasons we aren’t supposed to know until the bell rings, the fat lady sings and we graduate from this class and pass along to another level?

I could say I hope this is the way it is, and I do, but if it’s not … if this is all there will ever be … well, I’ll be disappointed if there’s anything left of me to be disappointed with.

If, however, there is some “me” left … energy me, next-life me, other-universe me, hang-around-and-visit-loved-ones me … I will feel better about the whole dead thing.

As I put on Jaren’s funeral “program”:

Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.
_ David Searls

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