You would have to be in the darkest reaches of the Amazon jungle not to know about the death of Michael Jackson. Today the worst fears of a nurse who knew him, were realized when it was announced that an anaesthetic drug had been found in the drugs taken from his home, and that his body had been covered in hypodermic needle marks. I had already had thoughts about the comparison with the death of Elvis Presley and the more recent death of Anna Nicole Smith. It would seem that if you have the money, there is no shortage of "not so ethical" doctors who are willing to pander to the every demand of an unstable, insecure person. It has been reported that Jackson was adamantly against street drugs, but that he was comfortable in that all of his drugs were prescribed and therefore "OK". Sadly, he did not account for unethical doctors willing to be "Yes" people for his every demand because he paid them so generously. This is doubly disgusting to me in a country where some truly sick people cannot afford health care.
Then the second strange phenomenon starts in this country - the compulsive obsession of the media with famous people. We are subjected hour after hour, day after day with endless programs about the person, their life, speculation about their death, and a sordid fascination with every ugly piece of half-truth that can be dug up and displayed. Finally, there are those particularly despicable paparazzi who haunt the rich and famous looking for the "sensational" photo that equally sordid tabloids will pay out a fortune to have the exclusive publishing rights. Who needed to see the picture of Jackson, obviously dead, in the ambulance with a trach. tube in his throat? No-one; but someone took it and sold it, so it could be displayed on the media.
On my Facebook page I quoted the following statistics:
Over 25,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to: •1 child dying every 3.5 seconds •17-18 children dying every minute •A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 1.5 weeks •An Iraq-scale death toll every 16–38 days •Over 9 million children dying every year •Some 70 million children dying between 2000 and 2007 The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases.
I made the plea that if only such information could get the same media attention.
What is our fascination with the sordid and the gruesome? Are we so insecure and fearful about the truth in our own lives that watching someone elses' life details being saturated by the media makes us feel "OK"? So we can say, "Look at that, at least I'm not THAT bad", and then we can continue with our own personal dysfunction. In the recovery programs there is a saying, "When you point a finger, there are three more fingers pointing back at you". If you are someone who has been discussing all of the sordid details of Jackson's life around the water cooler at work - go home and look in the mirror.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Health - a right or a priviledge
I learned of a death yesterday that need not have happened. Much is being debated at this time about health care in America. I grew up in England where one never had to think about whether one could go to the doctor or afford medication. In California where I live now, the Governor is proposing to cut the State Healthy Families program that provides health care to those who fall in the gap between Medicaid and working for an employer who cannot afford to provide medical insurance for his employees. Healthy Families provides low cost insurance for thousands of hard working families.
The person that died yesterday had insurance. She had been sick for a year with an ear problem that was never treated correctly. This person had clawed her way back from drug addiction and mental illness to regain her nurse's license and work again in the field that she loved, only to die because of an incompetent, red-tape driven, pharmaceutical controlled system. There has to be a better way.
I think we have become too greedy and self-centered in this country to the point that if we're OK then damn everyone else. What has happened to us? Where is the compassion? This country claims to be, by and large, a Christian one. Did not Christ tell his followers that if they had two coats then give one to the person who has none? No-one in this country should have to choose between food or heat, heat or medicine, lights or food. We are all over the globe fighting wars for other people who don't even want us there, and not fighting for peace in countries where genocide is a common occurrence.
I do not claim to have the answers, but just as a small child knows when things are fair or not, I know that our approach is not right, it is not Christian, it is not what Mother Teresa, Ghandi or the Dalai Lama would teach. We admire these people and yet if we all had just an ounce of their worldly compassion, no-one in this country would die needlessly.
Rest in Peace Suzanne.
The person that died yesterday had insurance. She had been sick for a year with an ear problem that was never treated correctly. This person had clawed her way back from drug addiction and mental illness to regain her nurse's license and work again in the field that she loved, only to die because of an incompetent, red-tape driven, pharmaceutical controlled system. There has to be a better way.
I think we have become too greedy and self-centered in this country to the point that if we're OK then damn everyone else. What has happened to us? Where is the compassion? This country claims to be, by and large, a Christian one. Did not Christ tell his followers that if they had two coats then give one to the person who has none? No-one in this country should have to choose between food or heat, heat or medicine, lights or food. We are all over the globe fighting wars for other people who don't even want us there, and not fighting for peace in countries where genocide is a common occurrence.
I do not claim to have the answers, but just as a small child knows when things are fair or not, I know that our approach is not right, it is not Christian, it is not what Mother Teresa, Ghandi or the Dalai Lama would teach. We admire these people and yet if we all had just an ounce of their worldly compassion, no-one in this country would die needlessly.
Rest in Peace Suzanne.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
A poem for Memorial Day
Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."
RIP all who have given their lives.
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."
RIP all who have given their lives.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Mother's Day Proclamation
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
by JuliaWard Howe (1870)
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
by JuliaWard Howe (1870)
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A light exists in spring
A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
Emily Dickinson
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
Emily Dickinson
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
In praise of being
All life is searching
Outward
Outward
Finding people
Finding places
Findng things
The short lived joy
These discoveries may bring,
Do not provide the answer
To life's suffering.
Times passes
Once years
Now decades
Still searching,
Then resigning
To something missing
Undefined
Unknown
Wisdom slowly gained
Says, "Turn inward"
Be the seeker
Be the answer
Claim your destiny
From the dellusions
Of the material world
A lifetime wasted
No -
A life gained.
It takes the journey
To realize
All is at home
It takes the doing
To realize
Only being matters
Outward
Outward
Finding people
Finding places
Findng things
The short lived joy
These discoveries may bring,
Do not provide the answer
To life's suffering.
Times passes
Once years
Now decades
Still searching,
Then resigning
To something missing
Undefined
Unknown
Wisdom slowly gained
Says, "Turn inward"
Be the seeker
Be the answer
Claim your destiny
From the dellusions
Of the material world
A lifetime wasted
No -
A life gained.
It takes the journey
To realize
All is at home
It takes the doing
To realize
Only being matters
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Thoughts on the passing of a wonderful person.
Today I learned that my High School music teacher had passed away last November. She had had MS for many years but ultimately died of cancer. This caused me to return to memories of my teenage years - a miserable time except for the ray of light provided by a certain music teacher.
I was 14 when she came to our school. I had already taught myself to play the guitar and was on my way to becoming the next Joan Baez!! It was the latter part of the 60s, we all sang protest songs, put flowers in our hair and dreamed of going to San Francisco. I was a sorry depressed teenager, failing in school, with a miserable home life and few friends. The messages I received from every angle were ones of not reaching my potential; I didn't even know what that was, and had very little reason as so why should I aim for it.
She overheard me playing one day at recess and told me that she wanted to start a folk choir but needed someone to teach guitar. I agreed, as any excuse to play the guitar on school time was cool with me, and it meant that I had a reason to stay after school and delay going home.
She made music so much fun. She seemed genuinely interested in me and that in turn made me want to achieve. I was like a sponge that could never soak up enough water. My every spare minute was spent hanging around the music room. By 16 I could think of nothing else that I would rather do with my life than to be a music teacher just liked her. By 18 I had mastered the basics of the piano, the clarinet and the recorder, the latter of which has brought a lifetime of friends and enjoyment.
I spent 4 years in college following the music teacher dream. I loved my college years, and I did teach for 2 years, but it was not for me. My life took another direction and I have very few regrets. What she had given me was belief in myself, and with that the whole world was at my command. To instill good self-esteem in a child is the greatest gift that you can give them. I owe my life to a talented teacher who happened to cross my path. I am grateful that I had the chance to tell her as much in some brief correspondence that we exchanged a year or so ago.
I thank you Lynda P. from the bottom of my heart. Rest in peace.
I was 14 when she came to our school. I had already taught myself to play the guitar and was on my way to becoming the next Joan Baez!! It was the latter part of the 60s, we all sang protest songs, put flowers in our hair and dreamed of going to San Francisco. I was a sorry depressed teenager, failing in school, with a miserable home life and few friends. The messages I received from every angle were ones of not reaching my potential; I didn't even know what that was, and had very little reason as so why should I aim for it.
She overheard me playing one day at recess and told me that she wanted to start a folk choir but needed someone to teach guitar. I agreed, as any excuse to play the guitar on school time was cool with me, and it meant that I had a reason to stay after school and delay going home.
She made music so much fun. She seemed genuinely interested in me and that in turn made me want to achieve. I was like a sponge that could never soak up enough water. My every spare minute was spent hanging around the music room. By 16 I could think of nothing else that I would rather do with my life than to be a music teacher just liked her. By 18 I had mastered the basics of the piano, the clarinet and the recorder, the latter of which has brought a lifetime of friends and enjoyment.
I spent 4 years in college following the music teacher dream. I loved my college years, and I did teach for 2 years, but it was not for me. My life took another direction and I have very few regrets. What she had given me was belief in myself, and with that the whole world was at my command. To instill good self-esteem in a child is the greatest gift that you can give them. I owe my life to a talented teacher who happened to cross my path. I am grateful that I had the chance to tell her as much in some brief correspondence that we exchanged a year or so ago.
I thank you Lynda P. from the bottom of my heart. Rest in peace.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thoughts for the changing of the year
"The qualities we possess should never be a matter for satisfaction, but the qualities we have discarded." (Wei Wu Wei)*
In recovery programs they talk about "defects of character"; with a New Year just turned, many think of resolutions often related to things about ourselves or our situation, that we do not like. I don't make resolutions because I believe that is a set up for failure and yet more dissatisfaction with one's lot in life.
A couple of years ago I made a resolution to do more for the planet - this is the only one I have ever kept. I figured deciding to "do" something, rather than to stop doing something, stood a better chance of success.
So this year my aim is to do more to improve my knowledge of Buddhist studies and gain some guidance in meditation. As I am building on something that I have already set in place I feel pretty good about this.
My partner and I continue with our seemingly endless desire to rid ourselves of "stuff". Have you noticed the regenerative ability of "stuff"?? We call our spare room "the black hole" because it seems to draw "stuff" into any vacant spot within! I consider the only failure is to give up - so we keep on emptying "stuff" out and giving "stuff" away!
Even with arthritis trying to take over my fingers, I am appreciative of the new lease on life that my surgery of last year, has given me. For almost a year up to that point, my life was on hold and my health slowly degenerating - now I am renewed! The reward? A trip to Oahu in February - a first for both of us.
So, the words from Wei Wu Wei (aka Terence James Stannus Gray 1895 - 1986) are wise indeed: do not concern yourself with what you have, look to what you need to give away. Other wise people have said that we can only keep what we have by giving it away. Such are my thoughts in these troubling times.
*('Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958)
In recovery programs they talk about "defects of character"; with a New Year just turned, many think of resolutions often related to things about ourselves or our situation, that we do not like. I don't make resolutions because I believe that is a set up for failure and yet more dissatisfaction with one's lot in life.
A couple of years ago I made a resolution to do more for the planet - this is the only one I have ever kept. I figured deciding to "do" something, rather than to stop doing something, stood a better chance of success.
So this year my aim is to do more to improve my knowledge of Buddhist studies and gain some guidance in meditation. As I am building on something that I have already set in place I feel pretty good about this.
My partner and I continue with our seemingly endless desire to rid ourselves of "stuff". Have you noticed the regenerative ability of "stuff"?? We call our spare room "the black hole" because it seems to draw "stuff" into any vacant spot within! I consider the only failure is to give up - so we keep on emptying "stuff" out and giving "stuff" away!
Even with arthritis trying to take over my fingers, I am appreciative of the new lease on life that my surgery of last year, has given me. For almost a year up to that point, my life was on hold and my health slowly degenerating - now I am renewed! The reward? A trip to Oahu in February - a first for both of us.
So, the words from Wei Wu Wei (aka Terence James Stannus Gray 1895 - 1986) are wise indeed: do not concern yourself with what you have, look to what you need to give away. Other wise people have said that we can only keep what we have by giving it away. Such are my thoughts in these troubling times.
*('Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon' (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958)
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