Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Thanksgiving ~ A Pause That Refreshes

At least I hope it does. A break from all the bleak news that bombasts us daily.

We all have a lot to be thankful for even if we feel like we have to turn over rocks to discover just what.

For me, it's that I'm still here. It's that I've been married for 48 years to my first and only husband.  It's that he is not a man bent on bad behavior.  It's that I have a wonderful home, more than enough food on the table and friends, really good friends, that date back to my childhood.  It's that they, too, are still here!

It's that we still live in the best country in the world.  We're going through a really tough patch right now but I believe common sense and love of country over self will win out in time.  I remind myself I don't see the headlines in newspapers around the world, or how reporters report things that are in their national and local interest.  I remind myself they too have similar problems with media overkill and political self serving.

We don't live under a dictatorship.  Our military is not lurking on the sidelines waitng for an over- throw opportunity.  Among those running the country there are good men and women and slowly but surely they are being heard  and gaining a foothold.

We have become a vast nation harboring such massive differences in regional needs I think it's an amazing glue that keeps us together.  I'm thankful for that.

Having traveled the world as well as this country, I'm thankful I was fortunate enough to be born here. Here, too, will I die. Just another person who has lived a life of mediocre accomplishment.  I've tried to be a good person, a caring person and a tolerant person. I'm thankful that what I've been has been enough to enjoy what has been a wonderful, fulfilling life.  Pretty much just a middle of the road type of person.  I'm thankful, too, for those of far greater accomplishment who have used their talents to keep our homeland the best of the best. May they grow in numbers. I'll be thankful for that too.

That's pretty much me.  Happy Thanksgiving.







Sunday, November 19, 2017

Groping and Harassment

It's time for an old lady to weigh in on this subject.  I think it's fair to say any girl who grew up when I did is an automatic member of the "me too" club.

Right or wrong, it is the way it was.  It can begin, as it did with me, even before high school when little boys were curious about little girls.  Even then they were stronger and could easily over power a reluctant girl.

It became more prevalent as both boys and girls were maturing and hormones raged. Boys sought to get a "feel" of an often reluctant girl. As time passed girls began to get a voice and the ability to resist.  If they wanted.  If not, well, that's another story.  College years weren't very different than high school though it may have gone further than a feel.  During this period the young men and women were of nearly the same ages. Unless a male professor was involved.

Out in the real world, however, things changed.  That's when it quit being a growing experience each  young woman managed in her own way and turned into unwanted groping and harassment by men of an age to know it was wrong. Men who were in positions of power over young women who had so much to lose by resisting. So they lived with the humiliation.

All along the way, women always had to face the fear factor.  Fear of being tormented verbally by their peer group or told they had brought it on themselves by adults who should have known better. Fear that they may be physically harmed if they resisted.

I'm not suggesting this was the norm by any means, but such behavior did occur with a degree of frequency.  Somewhere along the way parents were not teaching their sons how to respect women and the treatment that went along with the respect.

When you ask today why women didn't speak out 20 or 30 years ago it's because they were too often demeaned  if even believed.  Today they speak out because they have a sisterhood of those with like experiences to back them.

All of a sudden those incidences of wandering hands, suggestive comments and outright threats are being brought to light.  As I listen to the men fumble for excuses and make half hearted apologies I know it's because they've been outed; not because they feel any sense of shame or remorse.

It has become epidemic.  In the forefront it seems to have been athletes criticized for spousal or significant other abuse then let off because of who they were. There has always been the good old boy club whether it be the athletes,  corporate bigwigs or Hollywood.  Ah, yes, the casting couch.

I wonder if every man in a powerful position had to step aside if allegations were brought against him  there would be many left in those positions.

The tables have turned now.  Once upon a time a President got a pass for known misbehavior. Many have been known to have mistresses, ours today remains under the shadow of his own bragging.  What manner of man behaves in such a manner and preaches about our "values" at the same time?

Well, we're finding out aren't we. The behavior is pervasive - from sports to academia to business to politics. And it is truly non-partisan.

So you women who may still be reluctant ~ speak out.  Cultures can be changed and this one needs to be. This is the time ~ seize it. This is the time. Powerful women have your back.

Thursday, November 02, 2017

What Would We Draw?

My husband and I have a passion for photographing rock art.  Pictographs and Petroglyphs left behind by the ancient ones.  Many over 1000 years old.

Our last venture was to Bear Gulch in Montana where the site seems to be one where young men went before battle and etched and painted their visions into the limestone cliffs.  The problem is there is no dictionary to explain what they were trying to say.  It's a matter of deduction.

Tomorrow we depart on another of our ventures, this time to the sandstone canyons of Arizona and Utah.  I love to look for similarities among them for many different cultures were contributors.  Some are astrological and show the planting and harvesting cycles by where the sun hits a certain spot.  If it's a wall the places are marked.  It's really quite fascinating.

As we prepare to take off to the hinterlands I find myself wondering what we would carve into stone and just what would we be trying to say to those who follow hundreds of years from now.  Will those people see things the same as we do? Or would they look at our depiction of life as we know it and scratch their heads.

It's fun, in a way, to romanticize it all and think no matter how advanced our technology, it may not survive.  What is left would be our scratchings and would they be as big a mystery to them as the ancients' scratchings are to us?

Never mind that we're doing all we can presently to expunge our history for misguided political correctness.  Books may be banned or burned, robots may revising life as we know it and nothing to relate to who and what we are today may survive.

Yet those scratchings on walls of stone all around the world will survive.  Most will, anyway, because they are remote and difficult to find.  The hooligans who delight in destroying historical sites would never find all of them.  The stories will be there.  Perhaps between now and then a Rosetta Stone of sorts will be found to aid in translation.

What will those in the future think?  How could we humans of this era be so afraid of reality we've blinded ourselves to it. And in so doing brought civilization to its knees.

Of course if robots rule the world as some predict, it really won't matter will it.

Saturday, October 07, 2017

A Traitor Among Us - California

No.  Not Bowe Bergdahl though by some standards he does qualify.  No.  This is a state.  California - now a sanctuary state for those in this country illegally.

While it is said that most in California illegally are from Mexico and Latin America, what is to prevent  those who wish us harm from also entering?  Not to mention California probably has a fair share of them already.

I find the governor's timing interesting.  Signing this legislation right after the massacre in Las Vegas. Some I'm sure would say one has nothing to do with the other.  Perhaps.  But what happened in Las Vegas is a reminder of what can happen when a loose cannon really gets loose!

I understand the current generation - those in charge of most everything - have a very liberal outlook about everything.  Warm and fuzzy rules without an ounce of good senses, knowledge of history nor desire to obtain it. Consequences?  What are those?

I remember when I thought I knew everything.  It was when I was in my early 20s and thought everyone over 40 was an  old fogey. Well, those old fogeys knocked me down the necessary pegs in a hurry.  The difference between then and now is that I listened, in some cases swallowed my over reaching pride and, most importantly - learned!

Such behavior is no longer the norm.  California governor Jerry Brown is closer to my age than most of those he governs.  He has always leaned so far left he always appeared to me to be out of balance. That's why when he was governor before he was called Governor Moonbeam. An ethereal glow in the dark. The dark being what he did to California and still is. That seems the only thing about him that could possibly appeal to the younger Snowflakes and those who nourish them.

I've lived in California twice.  Once in the Bay area. Once in the L.A. area. It was pleasant enough if you didn't mind an occasional earthquake that could throw you off balance or drop a few items from your shelves.  You could still use charcoal in your barbecues.  If you were willing to commute over 2 hours each direction you could find a house you could afford and you took for granted that some of the crew caring for your lawn were illegal.  The thought that they might be there to harm you never entered your mind.  If they did something wrong they were arrested just like any of us would have been.

Now what?  How do Californians even survive?  The property values are way beyond reasonable, the taxes crippling and administrative dictates no more more than a paean to a liberal base that bears no resemblance to reality as it is today. That landscaping crew is now suspect.  How many have criminal records and I'm not talking traffic tickets.

When the discussion about securing our borders first began it was about the border between Mexico and the United States.  Now we have to worry about the border between California and the rest of us. It's porous.  Oh, yes.  Are we going to have to establish border crossings and assign border patrols to that lengthy stretch of desert and mountain?

Re think it guv. You're way off base on this one. You've put the entire nation at greater risk than what already exists.  I hope you can live with it when the next atrocity is committed by a thug who came via California.


Sunday, September 24, 2017

Stand Up Dammit!

Man, I am so sick and tired of professional athletes who make more in a year than we will in our lifetime dissing our flag, our country and by default all who defend it, in so called protest over social injustice.

I know, I know.  It has all been said before.  Free speech, their race being downtrodden, they're victims of police brutality and on and on.

Even worse are the team owners and those who regulate sports getting on the band wagon. None of them, not one is exactly downtrodden.  Issues with police have no business on the playing field.

Okay.  Has it ever occurred to these bozos that those who defend their right to act like uneducated boobs that the armed forces are full of people of all races, religions and genders?  How 'bout a protest for them?

How many of them have served and was called upon to salute a buddy felled in battle?  Have they any idea of the suffering that buddy most likely endured?  For what?  For them!  So they could play football or basketball or baseball or whatever!

How many of them have foundations to help their own?  Some do, of course, but really, how many over all? How many of them go beyond the NFL requirements to give a hand in the community, in their own communities where the youngsters really need figures to look up to?  Not for their prowess in sports, but for encouragement to excel and the support needed to help them along their way?

Every country in the world has it's social ills.  We of course have ours. But to show disrespect for our country all because you don't like our current President is shameful, disgusting and to borrow from Hillary makes every one who does so deplorable!

Sort out your priorities boys. There is a time and place for everything.  If you don't like the way things are do something about it.  Fist salutes and bended knee before our national anthem and flag isn't the way.  Put some of your vast sums of money where your mouth is.  How many people in Cleveland could be housed for what LaBron pays in mortgage every month?

It's not just tough being black in America today.  It's tough just being for vast numbers of us.  Yet we're not out there disrespecting our country.

It is ours, you see.  So get beyond the cheap theatrics and if you really care get off your knees and do something about it.

PS - That goes for celebrities and their snarky insults too.  Contrary to their opinion of their own intellects, they are not all knowing any more than any of the rest of us.  The difference is we're busy trying to live good lives and raise good families rather than celebrate ourselves and our egos.