Archive for the ‘Living’ Category

 
What a moment (more…)

 
Times of unrest are hard on all the people of Israel, but Jerusalem is impacted particularly hard, as it depends heavily on tourist visitation for funds, and this income is severely impacted by violence. (more…)

 
I have confessed already in the lines I write here that I have a loving relationship with my Blackberry. He is like no other man, reliable, present and only mine. (more…)

 
There are some things you dread. With just the thought of them your entire body convulses, and your mind, for a brief moment, is overcome with fear. (more…)

 
There are no street names in Costa Rica. There are no house numbers. There are no mailboxes. Ok…so how do you get around? How do you receive mail? (more…)

 
My roommate, Jacob “the Dude” Westman, coined the term “Costa Rica, the new west” on our trip to Cahuita National Park.  (more…)

 

5% of the world’s biodiversity (animal and plant life) is in Costa Rica, more than Europe and the United States combined, all in an area of the size of West Virginia. (more…)

Whether an investigation will result in punishment for the killers -- or those who hired them -- is uncertain. More than 1,000 rural activists, small farmers, religious workers and others fighting deforestation have been slain in the past 20 years, but only a handful of killers have been successfully prosecuted.

In the case of New Jersey, No. 2, the solar market blossomed because of a state government commitment to greater reliance on renewable energy.

Even as a boy scout's mother was struggling to keep warm, she could appreciate what she had been missing by staying in hotels.

The disaster in the gulf strengthens opposition to oil drilling in California.

The mayor of Los Angeles fell off his bicycle and broke an elbow when a taxi swerved.

"We feel very confident that the seafood is completely safe to eat," a federal official says of newly reopened gulf waters.

Recriminations were the order of the day at an E.P.A.-sponsored public meeting in Pennsylvania on a form of gas drilling known as hydraulic fracturing.

Diversions of freshwater from the Mississippi are said to have killed as much of 80 percent of the oysters in some Louisiana fisheries.

A measure that could significantly reduce air pollution that causes health problems like asthma and can shorten lives.

Poaching of the endangered African rhino is on the rise, driven by increased demand for rhino horns from Asia and the Middle East as traditional medicine and ornaments, the Telegraph newspaper reports.

The Creative Steps Day Care, a Philadelphia-area day care center, said Thursday, that members of a private swim club the organization had paid to attend, made racist comments about the center’s children to the point of bringing some of the young children to tears. Not to be outdone by its racist members, the swim club then quickly canceled the swimming privileges of all the children – from the day care center! (more…)

Fox News Reports: Ex-Porn Star Quits School Cafeteria Job After Uproar

Let me ask a question.

Actually, I am not asking permission.

I am here to say, what is wrong with us?

Let’s pretend for a moment, there is a lovely woman.

The woman has made her living for some years as an “adult entertainer”. Whatever that means. If she is over 18 and TRULY exercises free will, economy, or pimps or whatever, have not forced her in the role, then………

So let’s pretend, one of the three:

a) she did so with free will; or
b) she did so without choice; or
c) she was forced into same.

Ok.

Now, we meet a woman, a woman, wanting to be who she is in this moment, someone who wants to work at a school, for, forgive me, less than $5,800.00 a year, and now, parents want her out?

Did I miss something?

Is she accused, convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of doing something to innocent children? (btw: all children are innocent).

Is there anyone out here that has spent a moment in Suburbia? How it is always others and not the inhabitants, that have skeletons?

I fear a projection of misconceived issues may be afoot.

I don’t know this woman portrayed in this Fox News article and now being publicly lambasted, but what I don’t see is any allegations as to how this woman treated children.

Really people, can we grow up and give our children a better model for the future?

This is a witch hunt, Salem circa 2008.

Don’t be a part of it.

I received an e-mail just now from across the sea from me….I took the time to read it and now share it with you…

“Subject: FW: Two choices

What would you do?….you make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

“When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do Where is the natural order of things in my son?”

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. “I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.”

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, “Do you think they’ll let me play?” Shay’s father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay’s father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, “We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.”

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father’s joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.

Everyone
knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first base man’s head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, “Shay , run to first! Run to first!”

Never
in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, “Run to second, run to second!” Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball … the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitchers intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-base man’s head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, “Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay”

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, “Run to third! Shay, run to third!”

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, “Shay, run home! Run home!”

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.

“That day”, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, “the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world”.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyber space, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you’re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you’re probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren’t the “appropriate” ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference.

We
all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the “natural order of things.” So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.

You now have two choices:
1. Delete
2. Forward

May your day, be a Shay Day.”

May God, the Universe or whatsoever you believe in, bless you on this journey we call life.

Namaste.

-S.E. Designs

Meet the Modern Day Thunder Goddess.  She wears boots for stomping, having recently discarded her cape.

That’s it.

Sin-e.

Finished.

Over.

You got that?

Ok, ok, I’m done.  Most of you that step over here quite often are used to me stamping my foot.  Truly though, I wondered today, suppose I said:  That’s it?  I’m done with my role as a woman?

I work, I love, I care, I clean, I keep track of appointments, I blog for God’s sake.  I do and do and do.

Oh, here we go, my evil twin has arrived:  “You think you do so much?  Imagine living without electricity?  Imagine having no food, not just all the food you desire?  Imagine working from sun up to sun down and beyond simply finding enough water for washing?”  Her voice goes on and on.

Yes, I have an evil twin.  Anytime I get tired or want to moan, she shows up, banging at the door.

I may as well let her in…she never stops knocking.

But hey, you out there, have you ever experienced that?  You simply don’t want to be polite, demure, kind, caring, and all the other words that we strive to embody as women?

I want to be the Goddess of Thunder.

Seriously, go read Romancing the Crone’s post on this, you will see what I mean:  Words of an Ancient Goddess.