Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Buses, Part I

Yesterday, while going through some old pictures I'm trying to catalogue and put into new albums for family, I ran across more than a few that had the grills, trunks, and bumpers of different cars that belonged to family members over the years. This kind of activity often carries me off into a memory zone that I haven't explored for a while.This particular time I was whisked away into two different directions of thought. One about the evolution of travel and how it contributes to our freedom and makes our world so much more accessible and the other about my own personal journeys in some of the cars in the pictures. Thinking about traveling in the cars was a natural bridge to other travel experiences; thus the planes, trains and buses.

So go the musings of firing, re-firing, near missing and finally connecting synapse when occupied with nostalgic activities. What struck me most profoundly about these images was the emotional weight they carried when coupled with their owners, and how the modes of transportation were a way of chronologically organizing my recollections.

For my mother, more than any other person I've known in my life, the car was a symbol of power. Mobility was essential to her in ways that I will probably never understand. Her quest for happiness and a better life, combined with my father's willingness to do whatever she asked of him, put our little family of five on the road many times. More often than not the journey was a full fledged move. The trips in between the moves were to visit various family members all over Texas with very few exceptions.

Before I graduated from high school, we lived in Ranger, Dallas, Brownfield, Borger, Brownwood, Waxahachie, San Antonio, Borger (again), Big Spring, Weslaco and Borger (once more). I've never been able to figure out the allure of Borger, and if you ever saw it you would wonder too. However, you can believe that I was no stranger to the art of passing time on the road counting the freight cars on long trains, telephone poles and oncoming cars with one headlight, reading long strings of Burma Shave signs, playing 'I Spy ' with my siblings and fighting for territory in a crowded back seat.

All of this was endured with two chain smoking parents, ever changing Texas weather and no air conditioning. Times being what they were, my mothers first requirement when packing for a trip was an iced down six-pack and a carton of Pall Malls. My Dad made sure the fishing poles and his bait and tackle box were somewhere in the mix. Seat belts were not a part of our health and safety plan. My calculation, considering the size of Texas is that we laid about a million miles of rubber on the state roads between 1947 and 1965.

There were three cars that stand out in my childhood experiences. One was the 1939 Chrysler (Plymouth?) that occupied my grandparents garage in Ranger, the second was my parents old visored grey '51 Chevy and the other was my Aunt Olive's Buick, I think a '55 or '56; a two toned affair with big vent holes along the side and a monster V8 engine. I loved my Aunt dearly and she, like my mother was very fond of packing up her children and her belongings in that car and driving like the wind to her current fantasy. Somehow the car is indelibly intertwined with her in my memory.

My folks traded in a 40's vintage car for the Chevy when I was about 9; that meant that the car was already 7 years old. By the time we got rid of it and bought a used '55 Chevy, I was 13 and the car was becoming a real embarrassment to me. The two grey monsters in my life that year were that Chevy and a grey hand-me-down coat that one of my classmates asked about in the following manner: "Is that real rat fur, or fake rat fur." Geeeez. Of course, I realize now that the car was really well taken care of and that my parents kept it because it was both reliable and paid off. The coat was in perfect condition, but suffered no further wear. I braved the cold with an icy smile many times that winter. At the time, sneaking out of the car before anyone saw me was a regular ritual and accidently leaving the coat in the back seat was tantamount to my social survival.

The only time I remember my grandparent's car being driven was in the summer of 1960 when I was 13. My parents, probably needing some space of their own, put me (The Leader and Protector), my 9 year old sister and my 4 year old brother on a Greyhound bus in Borger, Texas to travel to Ranger, Texas and stay with my grandmother for a visit. They gave me $2.00 to buy drinks for us and a box of 6 doughnuts. Being the leader, I refused to have anything to do with the doughnuts and made my little sister carry them. She is still angry about this. Borger to Ranger is 270 miles. The caveat about the two bucks is that I was supposed to give the change to my grandmother when we got to Ranger. I am smiling now. Change?

Arriving in Ranger, we were picked up by Grandmother and a friend in the friend's car. But my grandmother, seeing my immense maturity at age 13, started making other plans for the long unused, but well maintained Chrysler. So began our journeys up and down about a 30 mile stretch of Highway 66, visiting grandmothers church friends, doing sick visits, impromptu piano concerts and delivering finished sewing projects with yours truly at the wheel, floor shift, clutch and all. I got my drivers license a year later at age 14 and my Mother and Dad always thought I learned to drive at school. Since they paid for it, I never told them my grandmother had used me as a chauffeur that summer. My, my how the world has changed. The miracle is that I am here to see it.

Two other bus trips stick out in my mind. When I was almost 18 I married and left Borger for good. My husband was a Marine and was changing duty stations at the time, so he had to leave, pack up his gear in California and travel to Tennessee with the military to get to his new duty station. Getting to Millington, Tennessee for me meant getting on the dreaded Greyhound again, with the required box of 6 doughnuts and an increased allowance of $10.00. The trip was about 650 miles and included a whole night on the bus and a stopover at a deep South bus station where Civil Rights protests were in progress. This was scary stuff in 1965 for a girl that had never been out of Texas.

I was dressed up like an idiot in a beautiful white wool suit my mother made for herself but gave to me after betting with me that I wouldn't get up and sing some horrible song with the band in a nightclub in Amarillo a couple of weeks before my trip. I wanted the suit, so I did it. My outfit was complimented with a hat, gloves and gun metal high heels and matching purse, knowing that I was going to see my true love. My hair was done up in a French twist and sprayed to last with Aquanet. All this got me was a lot of unwanted attention from a creepy shoe salesman that was on the bus almost all the way to my destination. He was probably a child pornographer.

I never got off the bus for the entire trip and still had my $10.00 when my husband met me at the station on the other end, but I was one tired and thirsty girl in search of a clean bathroom. I bought a new pair of loafers with the $10 and had money left over for hamburgers and cokes for the two of us before we faced the Tennessee love nest.

In Millington, my husband had rented us a duplex about 5 miles from the base. This is a long way from civilization when you don't know anyone or have any transportation. So, I was pregnant with our first child and stuck in the country with a radio and the local newspaper to fill my days, but I was still deliriously happy and NOT in Borger. After all, we had $112.00 a month to live on and the rent was only $79. Life was good.

On one happy occasion, my husband came home with free passes on the local bus system to go in to Memphis. We had been saving to see 'Becket' starring Peter O'Toole. The big day arrived and we got on a completely filled bus headed for Memphis. I was very excited to be going somewhere. On second thought, anywhere would have been fine.

About halfway through the trip, I realized that it was miserably hot on the bus and that the air conditioning was not working as it should; a really bad combination of circumstances when pregnant. My next memory is of waking up on the bus floor after both throwing up and passing out with my poor embarrassed husband trying to take care of me while a sea of hankies and Kleenex were being offered by offended but empathetic fellow passengers. This is one of those select moments when staying passed out would have been a much better choice. You should have seen that bus clear at the first stop! We got to Memphis safely though, cleaned up in the theatre bathroom, enjoyed the movie and a walk along the Mississippi river before we returned to the isolated duplex/love nest.

I thought of many more car stories as I wrote these, so I've decided to continue on this thought path for a while. My first plane ride came at age 21, but I am saving airplanes and my hearse and ambulance experiences for another chapter.

Happy highways till then!
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Saturday, September 24, 2005

The Benefit of Simplification

The dynamics of interaction with God and our human family affect each individual’s psychological development in both wonderful and frightening ways. Today I’d like to explore a small trove of personal ideas for healthy living with the goal of unlocking and releasing long held stressors that may be affecting our collective health and well being.

A necessary disclaimer is that I’m not a trained psychologist or other medical professional, and that all of this material is either from personal experience or personal opinion based on staying alive for the last 58+ years subject to an ever-changing and sometimes explosive family life. Many of these experiences were positive, and overall I can’t say that I’ve lived an unhappy life. My life at present, like most, is filled with challenges but I am also filled with love, peace and a sense of well-being that was a long time coming. All suggestions are offered with an open heart as an expression of my faith in humanity and the hope this information will make things a little better for someone. It helps me.

There is an art to being satisfied both in family life and life in general. The formula for me lies in two things: a cultivated ability to categorize life stressors, analyze their importance in my life and take positive steps to make the stress go away and the constant counting of the blessings I have in my life in comparison to negative experiences.

You may be saying, “Well, no duh…this is an over-rated and simplistic way to state a solution to a very complicated set of ongoing issues.” You are right. However, I have to reply that sometimes the faithful practice of simple solutions are the best path to a clear understanding of the complications in life.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I take on a complicated project with multiple rules, complicated language and political and psychological innuendo crawling all over it, one of two things happens; I throw up my hands in total disgust and walk away, or I meet the challenge with a welcoming attitude and start trying to boil it down to its most SIMPLE form and start from there. The second strategy is almost always successful for me. This is true of both projects that have a beginning and an end, and of family and personal issues that are more fluid and tend to evolve rather than be solved.

Every expert writes about how the family environment has a profound effect on how we behave as adults. I don’t disagree with this. We need to be conscious of our affect on young minds both in what we say and how we act. I wish I had been mature enough as a parent to realize this fully, but regrets aside, I have to work from the knowledge base I achieved later in life. We also need to develop a consciousness of our own developmental legacy, why we are the person we are, why we make the decisions we make and whether the influences we are following are healthy for us.

Part of this process is to separate the bad from the good. Put the bad into a reference database to be used for guidance in future decisions. Keep the good close at hand to generate life decisions based on positive results, planning, reality, and lastly circumstances controlled by personal skill and compassion for others who your decisions may affect.

We’ve all heard those sayings; “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Anon

Or, from the Bible:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3:8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

I would boldly interpret, asking God for permission, that there is a time to take all the things we have learned from these experiences, then generate peace and understanding around us by letting go of what ails us, keeps us from positive affirmation and stops us from being fulfilled in our lives.

Being an analytical person by nature I am a big believer in thought processes. Even though I usually don’t put it in writing, if I did, the process would look something like this for me:

GOOD
(BLESSINGS TO KEEP)

God in my life
Affirmative Statement: God gives me everything. Thanking God for my blessings, asking for His forgiveness and His guidance should be the first thing I do every single day and the last thing I do at night. If you want peace, find faith in God and make a lifelong effort to follow Christ to the very best of your ability. Remember that we are all sinners, all in need of salvation and all the children of God. Forgiveness is not earned, but given to us.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

Family
Affirmative Statement:
No one is an island and family, even though they are not always choices in your life, are your most important and lifelong influences. Pamper them, cultivate their love, love them back, be compassionate with them and EXPECT the best from them.

Work
Affirmative Statement: Includes avocation. For example: I am retired and I must consider that the things I do every day are important and worthy of mention. I make an effort to share what I know and give others a chance to teach me what they have learned. I pay attention to my neighbors and my community and I share my resources when possible. If you are not retired, this means giving your best effort every day to the task at hand. When you fail, it means trying again the next day to do your best and putting the failure to rest.

LOVE
Affirmative Statement: Love is something you receive in return for what you give. It is not something you can force, but it is something you can both learn and cultivate. Giving in this case does not necessarily mean “things”, it means giving of yourself and your own unique gifts in life; sharing, showing compassion and many times assuming a burden for the sake of another. It also means accepting love from others with thankfulness and humility.

REST
Affirmative Statement: Rest is not laziness and is required for health and continued productivity. It renews your body, your spirit and your mind and makes you a worthy instrument to carry out both God’s purpose for you and your own goals for your life and your family.


BAD
(JUNK TO STORE FOR REFERENCE)

Sins
Rationale: I am forgiven by the blood of Christ and must not forget his suffering for the sake of my salvation.

Failures
Rationale: Only steps to successes anyway!

Failure to Forgive
Rationale: It is a great stressor to carry the burdens of distrust, hate, prejudice and judgment around with you. It is misplacement of energy that can be used to make your life positive and productive. If you can not forgive, give the issue time and go back to it again (in the sense of a reference) and see if you can see it in a different light. If time will not heal the issue, it’s between you and God. Remember that what you can not cure is not as worthy a cause as the things that you can do something about. Focus elsewhere.

Laziness
Rationale: When you fail to take action, you can never receive the benefit of action. Only you can determine what is needed here…not all of us demand the same things in life, but remember that you reap what you sow.

Anger and Hatefulness
Rationale: A completely human response, but an utterly useless waste of time and energy. If you experience anger, get it over with quickly, don’t let it manifest itself in abuse or misuse of other people and resources, forgive yourself and get over it. Change or avoid the circumstances that made you angry in the first place if you can, then plan for behavior that will keep you from being angry next time. If your level of anger rises to hatefulness, take some serious alone time…step back from the situation and take a deep breath. This is dangerous, harmful, stressful behavior.


I am not pretentious enough to believe that this simple chart can cure the ailments of humanity. But I am hopeful enough that I believe it’s a step at looking at your place in the world and finding out what’s important to you, what you can fix or work on and which things are just not worth the energy to consider including in your life. Thinking about your life in a considerate way is the first step to living it in the way that makes you happy.

For my heroes/ heroines who have stayed with me through this entire process (the 3 people who actually read this blog, lol), I have one more piece of advice: Educate yourself, educate yourself, then educate yourself. You need knowledge of God to accept and maintain the principles of faith, knowledge of the earth to maintain your place in it, knowledge of your fellow man to understand what it is to be human, knowledge of healthy principles to be healthy and knowledge of behaviors to behave appropriately.

These are the things that form our principles, form a base for the decisions we make and ultimately give us our unique identity as a person. Without the right knowledge, you can’t form a valid opinion, create a work of art or find your way to the local grocery store. Validate and affirm yourself by faith, by experience, by knowledge and by acts of compassion and love.

That’s why you have a vessel called the mind. Fill it.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

CPU Blues


Pardon me…I am mourning the death of information.

I was wide awake when the nightmare occurred, but stubbornly refused to believe it happened. Happily downloading some purchased, legal software from the Sonic site, which by the way was preloaded and recommended by my computer manufacturer, Dell; the monitor suddenly went (not blue) BLACK.

Hmmmm, says I. Whatever can be the matter? Time to hard boot. Done. That should fix it.

Noooooooo. No. No. Black screen persists! Maybe the CPU is working in the background and is just slow…I’ll leave my desk for a while (I knew better at this point). Next morning….black screen….it’s crying time again. Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!

Shoot me please!

I called Dell and spent about 3 hours on the phone with one of their technical reps in India. The Rep was both courteous and knowledgeable in a perfunctory sense. Although I can’t fault her diligence or patience, when we gave up on our collaborative effort and I looked at all of the online help, she was just following the same rote diagnostic steps that were on the website. We had discussed at this point, that the data is a lost cause and reformatting the hard drive is the only viable action. I had to try every command key, help option etc., before I would believe this.

There are stages of mourning, and at this point I was determined to accept and move on. So I opened up the RAID dialog, pushed the fatal enter key and reformatted the disk. It was much like having an upper GI to leave my personal junk behind like this. No hope left except to start over. It took me 3 days to reload, verify, register and test the software so that I could get my system back. I’m still not quite satisfied, but I will say that I found Verizon’s DSL help desk much more thorough than the one at Dell. At least they told me some things that I didn’t know and didn’t have access to on my own. .

A positive note is that both MyFamily.com,Ancestry.com and PLAXO had files on their sites where I can recover some of the contacts, personal photos and genealogy. Our PDA, unfortunately doesn't have many files downloaded to it, even though there was plenty of capacity. If it weren't for these offsite resources, I would have nothing left. More thought on that later.


This computer is 6 months old, but had about 4 years of data on it. Resumes, personal files and letters, financial downloads and spreadsheets I worked hours on, many blog articles, family pictures, Calendars, Business Plans and over 300 Contacts….Shoot is turning to S_ _ t.

This is MY fault. Not because I was inept or ignorant of what I should do, but because I didn’t do it. I had an inflated confidence in the new high tech piece of equipment and thought a 6 month back-up would be sufficient for the amount of data I was storing. What I failed to remember is the IMPORTANCE of the data to my sanity and well being. I forgot also that a couple of hours a day for someone who works at the rate that I do can add up to a heck of a lot of lost work in a crash.

Three things I learned from this: BACK UP YOUR DATA ,BACK UP YOUR DATA REGULARLY and 6 Months is way too long, regardless of the size of your files. It's just as easy to set up a backup to run on auto nightly as it is to do it manually at longer intervals. (I am flogging myself now, a modern day info-penitente!)

Now that I’m back in business, my stage of mourning turns to paranoia about the lost information. Exactly where is it lost? Is it aboard some version of the Starship Enterprise, headed for worlds unknown? Is it fodder for an advertiser’s consumer soup list? Is a hacker shredding the irrelevant parts and using them to stuff living room pillows while he/she contemplates a suitable use of my finances? Are they part of the supreme energy that sustains us and keeps the earth spinning? Sheeeesh.

I guess we’ll never know.

Lord forgive me this expletive, but Damn it!

Sympathy cards accepted. Warm thanks in advance.

Paula

Friday, September 09, 2005

Things of Small? Value (In the Eye of the Beholder)

You could say that things are not my thing. But sometimes I find great pleasure in things that others might not consider significant. Antiques have never held much allure for me unless they have history that I can connect with in some way. For instance, I dragged around a gargantuan art deco bedroom set that belonged to my father's mother for many years, and finally sold it for much less than the value would be today and I'm still beating myself up for it. I hated the bedroom set; it's the idea of lost value and lost history that are eating at me. I still have old photos of people whose names I have long ago forgotten, and it is e x t r e m e l y difficult for me to let go of anything that another person gave me as a gift. I am hardly able to defile a book (write in it, bend the pages, etc.) and dislike giving or throwing them away. It's like if I keep the book, even if I hated it, I will benefit from the science, wit, experience, love, disappointment and sorrow, or whatever else was contained in those pages. I'm also a media freak, always collecting software, CD's, DVD's and all of the neat sorts of devices that make them useful. After all, there would be no symmetry to this semi-pathological collecting if it were not set to music.

I'm not over the edge yet. There is a place for everything, and even if its not in its place, none of it has grown mold, become a hazard to moving through the house or put us in danger of strange viruses... at least not on most days. I also wouldn't classify myself as a common pack-rat. I have my standards and refuse to collect old frozen food containers or balls of string, keep old newspapers (mostly worthless on the day they are printed anyway), or hang on to clothes I haven't worn since the 60's. Yes, I was born way before then. Otherwise, I would not have had time to accumulate these character building thingamabobs.

The item that inspired this little ditty is a Primer. Specifically The American Book Company of New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, Elementary Spelling Book, published in the 1880's, I think. The only real clue is an advertisement in the back for Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language ("A Grand Investment for Family or School") that covers the last page of the book. With regard to the Dictionary advertised, the following is available: "The Authentic Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, comprising issues of 1864, 1870, and 1884 (____still copyrighted), has been thoroughly revised and greatly enlarged under the supervision of Noah Porter, D.D., L.L.D., Ex-President of Yale University, and as its distinguishing title bears the name of (encircled) Webster's International Dictionary." There is more, but you get the idea. It's old.


I researched this item on the internet and it appears to be worth about as much as a good lunch. There are other existing copies and they are for sale. I may buy one so that I can see the first 36 pages that are missing in mine. For now though, I'll just be happy with the thing I like most about this book, which is the sense of history I get from it. I enjoy reading through it and thinking of the little lives it was shaping at the turn of the century. There is also a tangible sense of history contained in its pages.

These are some of the lessons our grandparents, or maybe your great-grandparents were learning at the turn of the century, taught in sentences designed to use their spelling words in context while driving home the morale of the day:

  • Wolves howl in the woods at night.
  • When the wind blows hard the sea roars, and its waves run high.
  • The man who drinks rum may soon want a loaf of bread.
  • The little sister can knit a pair of garters.
  • God made the ear, and He can hear.
  • Shut the gate and keep the hogs out of the yard.
  • Parents should provide useful employment for their children.
  • The Indians traffic with our people, and give furs for blankets.
  • The drunkard's face will publish his vice and his disgrace.
  • Sons and daughters inherit the estate and sometimes the infirmities of their parents.
  • Savage nations inhabit huts and wigwams.
  • The farmer hatchels flax; he sells corn by the bushel, and butter by the firkin.
  • A virago is a turbulent, masculine woman.
  • We should not trust our lives to unskillful doctors or drunken sailors.
  • Never equivocate or prevaricate, but tell the plain truth.
  • It is the duty of every good man to inspect the moral conduct of the man who is offered as a legislator at our yearly elections. If the people wish for good laws, they may have them, by electing good men.
  • Discontent aggravates the evils of calamity.
  • Option is choice. It is at our option to make ourselves respectable or contemptible.

A virago? A firkin? Hogs in the yard? Yikes!


It is interesting to me is that some of these old lesson examples are strikingly similar in meaning to what we might want our children to learn today, while others are clear references to the prejudices of the time, and some are blatant reminders of the way things have changed for the good in our country. It's a mini-snapshot of society evolving. Quite a few of the simple morales of this old text are relevant, even if the delivery of the information is different today. I think the greatest gap is seen in the direct references to God, the Bible, and morality lessons that were entrusted to the educators of this time.

I know that this is a long and wandering post, which may not be well suited for a blogbite, but I'm going to impose on your patience for just a little longer with one of the speller's fables.

THE FOX AND THE BRAMBLE from The Elementary Speller, published by The American Book Company (1880's)

"A fox, closely pursued by a pack of dogs, took shelter under the covert of a bramble. He rejoiced in this asylum, and for a while, was very happy; but soon found that if he attempted to stir, he was wounded by the thorns and prickles on every side. However, making a virtue of necessity, he forbore to complain, and comforted himself with reflecting that no bliss is perfect; that good and evil are mixed, and flow from the same fountain. These briers, indeed, said he, will tear my skin a little, yet they keep off the dogs. For the sake of the good, then, let me bear the evil with patience; each bitter has its sweet; and these brambles, though they wound my flesh, preserve my life from danger."

Even today we can feel trapped and injured by the very things that provide us shelter from harm. God, our jobs, our homes, our marriages, our friends, our families, our THINGS and our duty to preserve it all can be overwhelming. "No bliss is perfect."

What is the point of this post, you may ask. The point is only to share something interesting that ties us collectively to our heritage. I would give up this little book and all of my other trinkets if I could recover one small box of photographs of my children growing up that I lost in a basement flood years ago (sigh).

Just imagine how many of these small things of personal value were lost both to history and to our neighbors in Hurricane Katrina's wake.

Paula


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Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Where Do We Go from Here? Afterthoughts

It is going to take a very long time for Katrina victims to rebuild their lives and establish some kind of normal existence. The figures I'm hearing are that over all three states, there is an area of 90,000 square miles devastated by flooding and somewhere around 775,000 people who are completely displaced by the storm. That means that they have no home, no job, no income for cash flow and in many cases none of the basic needs for existence. This doesn't even cover the medical and psychological backlash or the grief over lost family and friends.

Like everyone else, I was completely shocked and mortified by the slowness of our Federal Emergency systems and the National Guard to respond. I could understand the difficulty in getting in to the sites that were affected by deep floodwaters, but what I never understood is why we didn't see them dropping food and water by air long before they got there physically. I'm interested to see how the government justifies their actions both before and after the storm hit the coast.

Unfortunately, a disaster like the recent flood is often the primary instigation for a new way of thinking about the interdependency of human beings all over the earth. It seems that we (collectively) are unable to grasp the importance of strong social and governmental infrastructure as it relates to long term survival until we either experience or are threatened with imminent death and destruction. As long as the "Nintendo" is working, we have the luxury of complacency, self absorption and withdrawal from the human problems that surround us. However, when the technology is suddenly interrupted by an inexplicable "Act of God", our eyes are flung wide open, our minds are overwhelmed and our hearts are laid raw with sorrow for what has been lost in the wake of our apathy.

Personally, I would contend that this is not an act of God, but a failure of man to be faithful to humankind and to act in a responsible way to a known impending disaster. Without pointing fingers at anyone in particular, I will say that the agencies, the oversight officials and the committees of both National and State governments that appropriate funds to avert disaster and ensure the infrastructure have all failed in the most miserable and obvious sense. In the richest country on earth, American Citizens died while waiting for water, food and medicine. While the media emphasis is now being spun toward the positive actions that are being taken, we must not forget what a difficult and rocky road it was getting to this point.

I agree that the proportion of this event and the logistics of servicing such a large area with disaster relief is more than anyone would have imagined. However, there were experts who predicted this exact catastrophic effect months (years?) in advance of hurricane Katrina. I assume that our government paid for these studies and then took an educated risk based on statistics that determined their inaction. I also assume that because the levies had held in the past, arguments were posed that the money for this infrastructure would be better spent elsewhere. I wonder if we looked at the list of priorities for those funds today if we would come to the same decision. I think not.

Americans and the American form of government need to be accountable going forward. For citizens, that accountability will come in the form of arriving at the polls fully educated on the records of officials to be elected and fully aware of the impact elected leadership has over our lives. It may also mean taking personal responsibility in the form of donations or volunteerism to provide relief for those already affected by past events. For the United States Government and local governments, accountability is the only way to recover the trust and support of their contingency. This goal can only be accomplished by an unprecedented bi-partisan commitment to rebuild what has been lost, honor those who have lost their lives and commit funding to prevent any similar disasters in the future. Compromise should be a word that is laid aside in our political vocabulary until these goals have been accomplished.

So,how should we act going forward? We should act with care, with compassion, with love and concern and without blinders. This Bible Verse expresses our obligation well:

Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Colossians 3:12

Don't play the blame game; just try hard to carry your end of the load.

Paula

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Saturday, September 03, 2005

Commentary Re: Negative Responses to Tragedy

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Re: Negative Responses to Tragedy


In recent days, I’ve been disappointed to see posts criticizing or demeaning the emotions of sympathetic people that have been brought on by the Katrina disaster. Even more concerning to me is the criticism of ANY action, including simple empathy and prayer, that people have for neighboring citizens in such dire and unprecedented circumstances. Some of the blogger posts I read referred to anyone “jumping on the bandwagon” with articles, donation links, empathetic statements and prayers, as insincere and under the surface, uncaring individuals. Another referred to the “tears” of Americans watching this tragedy as pure BS.

While this is a disturbing picture of how one might view fellow citizens, I am even more appalled by those that open their mouths and criticize the people of NO who did not get out before the disaster occurred. Clearly, these are people without experience in how the limitations that poverty, age, illness, mental capacity, responsibility for other people and lack of mobility, physical ability or even simple confidence can paralyze even the grandest efforts to take action.

And what about fear? I’m speaking of the desperate hope that you can hang on; the fear of leaving what little you have and going to an unknown space with no personal resources or means of income to support yourself (and maybe others) for an undetermined amount of time. Have you ever been truly afraid?

While I wonder about the decision making process of people who weren’t in these circumstances and chose to stay despite warning, I have the greatest and most heartfelt empathy for those with no choice. It’s not like we sent the National Guard in ahead of time to help them out. The government had just as much warning as the people.

If you are wearing the criticism shoe and find the squalor, death, starvation and dehydration of thousands of US Citizens acceptable because they didn’t have your excellent hindsight, education or resources…take another look at the stripping of simple humanity from your neighbors and put yourself there with the water rising and no place to go.

Hang on to the eaves on your rooftop in the dark of night with water lapping and spraying all around you and keep counting to see if any of your family is gone.

Wait endless hours in the heat with your parent dying and your child raw from diarrhea and dehydration.

Do it without water for almost long enough to kill you, and without food.

Do it while you are soaked to the bone with rancid water, while your own sweat and the stench of death and human waste are all around you.

Sleep on trash bags and refuse in the streets for almost a week.

Then answer to the criticism of flippant bloggers and talk show wannabes that think this is somehow your fault.

So put me on the empathy bandwagon, tears and all. There are short articles, donations links, empathetic statements and heartfelt prayer on this blog for the benefit of the victims, for the sorrow and shame of our country in the slowness of aid and comfort to the displaced and homeless, and for a revelation in attitude and human kindness from those that are wearing the “other “shoe.

Everyone has a right to a voice in this country…think what you may, speak as you wish, but as a parting thought; try to remember that kindness and human compassion have value, even to you. A good cry is in order.

Paula


Thursday, September 01, 2005

Ways to Help Katrina Victims

In the sidebar on the left, if you will scroll down a bit, there are a number of charitable organizations that I feel are legitimate and that do a good job with their resources. If you prefer linking from a site focused on giving, try the following link: http://www.networkforgood.org/.
If you have HOUSING for KATRINA VICTIMS that you would like to DONATE follow this link: http://www.hurricanehousing.org/.

There are many choices, just remember that you have to designate where your funds should go to make sure they are distributed in the way you intended. If you are unable to help financially, as many are, your prayers and moral support for the victims are important steps to initiate healing and restoration in this time of widespread human tragedy. Lift your voice and do the best you can with your own personal resources. God bless you for your efforts.
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