Post on Protests

Occupy movements are terrific.  I am a fan of local protests.  Then again, I am still an unfulfilled child of the late 60s and early 70s when protests made a difference.  Or so we thought until Kent State.

CSpan makes me want to protest more. 

Under Water to Newfoundlands and other thoughts

Found a great print at a second hand store that supports FOHA

If you hate cats, you must have been a rat in a former life.

So funny!


And as I swept up and mopped the floor at the house of newfs (you know who you are), I mused that if people were like newfs we wouldn't have had a wall street housing debacle.  Or at least it wouldn't have been so bad because the folks "under water" would have been rescued by the water rescue loving newfs.

Just a few thoughts as we end 2011.

On Legacies -- word of the day

Legacies...let's see.

Legacy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  ... ISome families pass objects and ideas down from generation to generation. These objects and ideas can also be called legacies. It may have to do with a person or many people. Individuals can leave a historical legacy. ... Legacies are more or less what someone is remembered for.

In my case, my liberalism, resilience and belief in the good in people came from my dad.  Perhaps because I never heard him complain about so-and-so unless that so-and-so was a known quantity.  He just presented the facts and let us kids draw our own conclusions.  I have adopted that in my life as through living by example and not preaching. God, I hate preaching.  I know...it is narrow-minded of me to hate preaching since I preach all the time on this blog but in my defense, I try to cite to background and then criticize.  I really do.  Preaching is the verbal equivalent of being pinched as a young child and told what to do because the pincher is older than the pinchee and expects respect.  Perhaps having been the  pinchee innumerable times, I have sympathy for those preached and pinched.  

Certainly we are being preached at now by the ultra, ultra, ultra right about the budget, free trade and whatever else the Tea Party decides is fair game.   Certainly we are being preached at by those who dismiss the idea of universal healthcare with the air of Marie Antonette 'let them eat cake.'  Certainly we are being preached at whenever the President is spoken about by his last name.  I know this lack of respect very well since I used it with the prior President who landed us into this awful financial mess and these wars against ideas that sadly began with President Lyndon Johnson (a good Democrat) who started the trend by starting a war against poverty.  

But I digress. For me, legacies will always have a personal inheritance definition.  My blue eyes came from my grandfather, my face from one grandmother, my love of words from both parents, my love of animals from my other grandmother, my wisdom from pitting hope against experience to quote from P.D. James' Original Sin and my serenity from making my choices for myself.  From my milk bred religion to the religion of my middle age and now to the serenity of the buddhist.  An amalgam that fosters the middle way approach to life.  

Song that Hit me today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_the_Long_Way_Home  Supertramp's classic really hit me today.  The song balances success and emptiness, searching for meaning tension between success and despair

Zen Cats for Serenity

Ever notice how well balanced cats don't react to trivia?  Oh, sure, they chase feathers, cat nip, climb curtains, claw at the most expensive thing in the place, sleep in shoes, eat your food but those essentially are cat things.  Their 'cat ma.'  What cats don't do is more important.  They don't hold onto fear or anger.  They deal much better with those emotions that we humans do.  They zen out instead ... reacting only when they need something from their servant -- which is you or me.  And they are very clear about what they need.

Researching for Paralegals and Others

What did we do without the internet?  We read books, went to museums, visited courthouses, cemeteries and libraries...lots of libraries.  But we can do so much more with the internet.  Yesterday's near shutdown is a case in point.  Local courts' filing boards posted instructions on the imminent closure of government and filing procedures in case the government closed down.  

Gilbert & Sullivan Alert

Sssssshhhhh, Gilbert & Sullivan is on WETA tonight.  Awesome.  It is fun to hear American accents singing familiar songs.  Completely revamped and updated as well.

Continuations of an Uncivil War -- in Congress

The Civil War started on April 12, 1861 so this year marks the sesquisentennial--150 years.  The war ended April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse.  We see this continuation in Lincoln's death a week later on April 14, 1865.

Nearly 150 years after Appomattox, we C-Span groupies watch the uncivil political debates going on about defunding planned parenthood, redefining the crime of rape, attempts to defund any opposition views that may or may not be paid for by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other acts of political aggression against the poor, the middle class, people of color, people who have progressive views, gays and women.

The Civil War continues.  We just don't have the cool music that Ken Burns' documentary.  Nor, thankfully, do we have the grapeshot and cannon booming in the background.  This particular episode of the war is being waged with money.

In the intervening years, we have learned nothing about the fact that when we raise up our brothers and sisters raise ourselves.  What we have learned, I suspect, is that government requiring us to help one another is always going to be criticized. 

We see this each time the Tea and Repubican parties refuse to pass legislation that would benefit the middle class, the poor, the women in this country, the young soldiers refused medical assistance for PTSD and continue instead to help their cronies in Wall Street and the health care industry.

Civil War

The Civil War started on April 12, 1861 so this year marks the sesquisentennial--150 years ago.  The war ended at April 9, the two commanders met at Appomattox Courthouse where the two commanders, Grant and Lee met on April 9th.  Tomorrow is April 9th and the Civil War continues.  True, no one is publicly sold as slaves in the open market places of the United States.  True, races together can eat, play and live.  But are principles of fairness, equity and opportunity open to all or is that just an illusion?

I would argue that the terms have shifted.  Instead of slaves in physical terms, today we speak of 'wage slaves,' or the monetary losses of the 'middle class.'  Tonight I watch C-Span and watch Senator Harry Reid work for saving womens' lives in trying to deny Republican ideologues in their attempt to deny funding for Planned Parenthood and Title 10 and other riders that are too numerous to mention.  I am proud of the Democrats in defying these despicable politicians.

The Civil War continues.

Interesting Observations

Recovering from life with pain means more than letting the pain go.  It means being able to prepare food for breakfast, lunch and dinner and being free enough of pain to eat.  It means reminding myself that eating is a good thing.  So tonight I wonder ... what role does low weight play in disease for humans.  I suspect there are many well researched articles about that.  

Historians of the Civil War Documentary and Music as History

Before Ken Burns, I must admit I never read these authors.  Now I will look them out.
Shelby Foot, Barbara J. Fields, Ed Bearss and Stephen B. Oates are just a few
And voices now gone forever...Shelby Foot died 2005.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4721849

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(TV_series)


And for further study http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Traditional-Instrumental-Soundtrack/dp/B000005J0O
which is the soundtrack of the series.  What to study further are the song books after the war where song titled, 'Oh what was your name in the States?'

Murder by Prison Camps and other means

13,000 deaths at Andersonville.  Rattlesnake Island, Ohio boasted its own prisoners -- Southern this time. If the South had won the war, we would be reading about Rattlesnake Island and others' I haven't even heard of, instead of Andersonville.   Mans' inhumanity to man continues from the beginning of time until now.  www.pbs.org/kenburns/


Death comes to all of us but we humans like to think that we are in charge of it.  We can choose when it will happen or at least we think can when we plan for it.  We are such planners, from abatoirs to salon rooms.   But death comes when it comes.  It wipes before it animals, crops, soldiers and those women and children and animals left behind.  Sad.  It comes when it comes. 

When you Look

When you look at events that shape us...from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, to reporters who grew to prominence in either of those (Belva Davis and Horace Greeley to name a few of those reporters), the soldiers who went on to become outlaws in the West it is amazing.  Much of life is practice.  We learn to walk, we learn our lessons, our maths, our music, our language.  Our environment shapes our language, our lessons, and our music which is a fact that isn't always recognized.  When you look at the world through either the south's or the north's prism becomes crystal clear.  But it wasn't clear and remains unclear 150 years after the war's end.  I have been at dinners with Civil War re-enactors when guests came close to blows for continuing to support their sides of the War.  

US Grant and Horses

There is a story about US Grant who severely disciplined a quartermaster for mistreating a horse on the eve of the Gettysburg campaign.   Truly heartening to know since animals have always borne the greater risks from marauding armies, caltrops, use as food animals for starving soldiers and being shot out from under their riders.  But this toll great greater when war because mass death to soldiers.  It just great worse as our ability to become the Henry Fords of death increased.  Civil War, WWI and WWII, and others kill so many not regularly reported on.  Animals in Sudan, Lebanon, conflicts every where.  Terrible slaughter that only get reported by rescue groups for dogs, cats, and wildlife.  Tragic.

So hearing stories about Grant and horses are so heartening.  

Things Learned

Civil War...photography comes of age as does embalming.  Chemistry.  Mass produced deaths from guns, artillery, disease, starvation brought military hospitals where doctors and medical arts improved if only to keep up with the carnage.  Clara Barton started the first of the Red Cross which is now world wide.  One of the first sanitation officers who went on to design New York's Central Park began his career as administrator in the Civil War.  This was an extremely important position (never before thought about) which became the basis for the trash haulers and sanitation officers of today.

Here is a snippet from Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Law_Olmsted

Civil War

Olmsted took leave as director of Central Park to work as Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a precursor to the Red Cross in Washington, D.C.. He tended to the wounded during the American Civil War. In 1862, during Union General George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, Olmsted headed the medical effort for the sick and wounded at White House in New Kent County, where there was a ship landing on the Pamunkey River.

On the home front, Olmsted was one of the six founding members of the Union League Club of New York.

When we are very, very wise and very, very lucky, adversity can teach us.

Namaste

What I never Realized in the Civil War

I keep forgetting how many luminaries of the 19th Century were alive during the Civil War.  Nathanial Hawthorn, Walt Whitman (who nursed others in the hospitals in Washington, DC), Emily Dickinson, Henry Adams, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Clara Barton, Emerson, and others.  And the list goes on and on.  And just regular folks who write movingly beyond our ability these days.  Truly stunning prose.  Truly stunning.

Bearing Witness

Ken Burns' Civil War series is remarkable.  This is the first time I have had the time to sit and bear witness to the sacrifices and mastery of Burns' narrative and grasp of history.  Remarkable historians give their narrative of the war and adding both local color and insights.  Museums give their photographic views masterfully brought into life by Burns' ability to use static media to tell active tales.  Music and actors narrating heartbreaking and joyous stories.  The sweep is breathtaking.

I have some stake in this war and some stake in understanding how brilliant Burns' ability is.  My family fought on both sides and are died at places I could never fix in my mind -- The Wilderness Campaign, Chickamauga, Chancellorsville, and others.  Now I can see them.  I can see the skulls from the prior battles still lying on the ground that my ancestors must have fought at.  Chilling.  Truly chilling.  And Burns' ability not to sink into pathos and dismal stories is awesome.

Back in college, I assisted a history student in putting together a multi-media presentation together.  We pulled together music, narrated the snippets of history backing the photographs and making slides of the photos for the show.  These shows look simple, easy, but they are not.  Truly a depth of skills goes into them.

So sad, so sad, so sad though.

History Channel on March 23, 2011

History had a program about building American cities.  Wonderful stuff especially for history geeks and fact ferrets like me.  Here are a few links that struck me as I watched that I will be checking into for more inspiration.   We are not alone in our fight for social justice.  It happened back in the 1890s and was documented extensively by the photographer Riis back then.

1. Images for how the other half lives jacob riis

    - Report images
   
2. The Progressive Era: 1890s: Jacob Riis

   Apr 5, 2009 ... How The Other Half Lives (1895 edition). This pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis focused on the plight of the poor in the ...
   www.authentichistory.com › ... › progressive era: 1890s - Cached - 

Going to the Cats....Yippee!!

I get to pick up that cute orange stripe little guy, Patrick Murphy today!!  Yea!!  So, yes, going to the cats is a good thing!!!

Who Rescues Who? Who Cares?

Sometimes we have our lifes’ work right in front of us. I know for me that is writing, books and rescue. Certainly my liberal education in the humanities prepared me for the writing part but I didn’t realize that until I was checking last week on www.gov.com website which had a chart saying what each major qualified a person to do in life. I just knew I write and write compulsively. The better I get from the pain, the more I write. The worse I get from the pain, the more I write. It is a release, a celebration and a distraction from things like dealing with real life. But I digress.



In my place right now there are three cats, art work I created over the years which surprises me by how much I continue to like it, antiques I inherited and shelf after shelf of old books my mom had back in the 30s. From these things, my life is made. Of course, cluttered up in that mix are all the family papers I inherited as well.



We are hoarders in my family when it comes to saving newspaper articles and obituaries and photographs. Hoarders of this type are treasured by historians. We are the ones who save the physical history of a time until the bulk of the materials can be preserved and explained to others. 


What I didn’t realize about being raised as a hoarder is how it slanted my view on life. I never learned to let go of memories – whether bad or good ones. I never learned to let go of emotional trauma. I never learned to let go of relationships. And I never let go of physical pain.


While I realized eventually I never let go of things, I only recently realized that having all of these feelings and memories and pains inside me made it easier for me to be overwhelmed by day-to-day life. Being overwhelmed made me draw back from friends, family and people in general.


What finally brought me back out was my commitment to rescue. It first started as a flicker of an effort to rescue myself and has now grown into where I have identified who I rescue and why and make arrangements ahead of time to assure a smooth rescue and recovery. These are concepts I never even dreamed of when I took that first step to find relief from pain. I just knew I had to do something pretty damn quick or drown.

Until all beings know peace, Know peace.

Who Rescued Who

In letting go of pain, there is the problem/benefit of refilling the hole in the soul that pain leaves behind.  Of course, letting go means bringing in, vacuums being what they are and Rescue filling the Gap

I choose to fill that hole left behind with cat rescue.  That's why I so often write about cats.  But cats are not the only things needing rescue.  Warehoused people in old age homes need people who can bring animals for visits.  Libraries (in this era of firing librarians) are in need to volunteers to continue the good work of restoring books to their proper places on the shelves and identifying books that belong to other libraries or which need repair.  Truck-N-Paws (a volunteer group committed to moving cats and dogs from kill shelters to sanctuaries) need people to drive a small distance to make a great amount of change.

And then there are the usual and not so usual suspects--from the Red Cross to training dogs for search and rescue, to supporingt public radio and public television or supporting animal relief.  Then there is the Guttenberg Project which rescues books that are out of copyright and can be typed and uploaded onto the internet.  And it is free to anyone who wants to work on it.  Volunteering at soup kitchens or hospitals or libraries gets people out of their homes and into contact with other people.  Even going for a walk to the local store can bring you into contact with school kids or people who are walking their dogs or just watching the birds and squirrels in the area.

There are so many ways to give back in gratitude for not having to let pain run our lives anymore.

Judaism believes that when you kill someone,  you kill a whole universe.  And the obverse as well.  When you save someone, you save a universe.  That is my fundamental belief in rescue.  A bumper sticker I saw yesterday said it all.  "Who rescued Who"  And  that is why rescue continues to be so important to me.  Rescue can mean many things other than animals.    Letting beauty come into the space formerly occupied by pain is one of the most powerful medicines I know.

One of the most beautiful lines I ever read is consistently in Tony Hillerman's mysteries and is a Navaho greeting.  "Walk in beauty."  I try.

Until we all know peace, Know peace

Dealing with Fibromyalgia Pain, Letting Go, Finding Peace

I practiced martial arts for many years and have written about that time before in this blog and in my original website called SkyScraps.com.  Imagine my surprise though when a friend told me about a technique to help with the gnawing pain of fibromyalgia.  And what surprised me wasn't that there was a technique I hadn't investigated.  There are plenty of those.  What surprised me was that one of the first things martial artists learn is to use their bodies as weapons and the influx of adrenalyn when going into a fight to stiffen their arms and legs.  In fact, we were always told to keep the fight techniques simple because of this stiffening.  The better fighters, though, were always able to maintain fluidity in their fighting techniques flowing from one hit to another block to a third strike and then circling out to start the cycle again.

Fluidity, letting go, circling are all essential in moving from pain into non pain.  Stretching helps muscle stiffness, meditation helps mental stiffness.  But perhaps the most powerful technique, for me at least,  is asking a leg or an arm, or a hand,  or a back to 'let go of pain.'  As I sit here typing this post, my hands don't hurt, my typing errors are fewer, and that comes the awareness of pain creeping back in and reminding my muscles to let go. 

Pain in my case is a habitual frame of mind and body.  Relearning how not to live in pain will be the work of the rest of my life and I think I can live with that.

May all beings know peace.
namaste  

Rescue on St. Patrick's Day and a Cat Called Elvis

I feed the stray cats who live in my neighborhood.  Every morning the cats know to come over to my front porch for breakfast. That way  I keep track of who is a new stray cat and how the regular strays are doing in all sorts of weather.  Some of the cats are true ferals and only eat at night or when they think no one can see them.  Some cats belong to neighbors who think cats in busy suburban neigborhoods are perfectly safe being outside all the time.  Generally these cats are fixed and have collars and know where they live.   And then there was one cat who either had no owners or very neglectful owners who never bothered to get  him fixed and then let him out to run around in the neighborhood. 

So I have been keeping an eye on this cat.  He has been running around with a cat called Elvis.  Elvis is the character of the neighborhood.  He trips people, jumps up on legs and twines around ankles being as cute as possible.  But show him too much attention and you will get clawed.  Recently, Elvis has been hanging out with a small orange tiger stripe cat.  Very friendly, very sweet, very hungry and very male.  This lasted  for about 3 weeks with Elvis showing the younger cat the ropes of being outdoors.  But it couldn't last forever.  Elvis started striking out at junior as the younger cat matured and I made a mental note to get ready to pull junior to safety.

That meant getting out the cat carrier, making sure it had a towel in it and everything was stowed in the car for a quick drive to the local FOHA vet.  It also meant taking the initiative and talking with the intake officer of FOHA about helping this poor little guy.   I also talked with the medical officer who knows about every vet in the area and has all of them on speed dial and email contacts.  (I mean, doesn't everybody have their vets on quick call?  If you are rescue, this is standard operating procedure because when things go wrong in rescue they go wrong very fast and you need to be able to get help as fast as possible.) 
 
But I am happy to relate that things went very, very well today.  I scooped up Elvis (while putting out the breakfast in my 'jammies).  He  was trying to beat up junior.  And I told him 'no.'   Then I  ran upstairs to get dressed and headed to the car.  Naturally, junior was no where to be found, but I heard the squirrels hissing at something and looked down at the base of their tree.  And there was junior. 

"Little man," I called to him.  "Come over here."  And he did because he knew everytime I called to him before he would get hugs, protection, love and food.  All powerful motivators.   Building trust is essential in what I do.  It takes longer to rescue building trust but it makes for a much better relationship between the cat and the human going forward.  So once the cat came over I gave him a hug and then just held him close and got into the car closing the door and putting him into the cat carrier. 

Job almost done because then I needed to call the medical officer to make the date for me at the vets and then needed to drive out there.  Once I was there, junior and I figured out his name from one of the other dogs named Murphy who was there for an early morning appointment.  Seeing as it was St. Patrick's Day, junior became Patrick Murphy which really seems to suit an orange tiger striped yearling who weighs all of 7 pounds 5 ounces. 

All that remains after I dropped him off at the FOHA isolation room to wait for his neutering operation is to locate Elvis's owners address so that I can tell the medical and intake officers just in case Pat the Cat actually has owners even if they were careless with him.  And then tell the Fairfax County Shelter exactly where I first saw him and where I think he might have lived considering who he was associating with.  So tonight I get to amble down the street and make a note of the street address to email to the officers at FOHA.  And if he doesn't belong to them and isn't claimed in 60 days by anyone else in this area then he belongs to FOHA and can be adopted out. 

Until we neuter the owners and save the animals may all beings know peace

Yea for finding a way to get phone photos onto computer

I have had a memory stick in my camera for about 6 months but forgot where I put the adapter.  I looked everywhere -- no luck.  I went to Target, Best Buy, and finally Radio Shack.  Whew.  Now the pictures are in the computer.  Finally.  I hate needing something and not being able to find it.  Frustrating experience.  If I ran the universe I would have all adapters for memory sticks be the same size.  Sometimes too much diversity is just a marketing technique to keep customers.  Grrrr

Typing is getting tougher, folks

Typing is much harder these days--probably due to the fibromyalgia pain getting worse.  What is making typing even harder though is that my keyboard skills are deteriorating.  My fingers hit multiple keys at once and all of a sudden my screen goes blank or my text goes somewhere else on the page.  It is weird.  I am sure there is a fancy long name for this condition.  I just think it is annoying, frustrating and weird.  Gah.  More later after I do a little research to figure this out.

News agencies found

I am a sometime news junkie.  It depends on what the news is covering.  The best news coverage I find comes out of Japan itself from www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld.  Or just go to http://www.euronews.com/ on your computer and that works as well.  Fascinating and far less strident than the U.S. news.  Less personality and more news.   It is too sad that disasters force me to find new sources for news.  The last time I had to do this was after 9/11 when U.S. news sources were far behind the curve of the news.  BBC covered events faster and more thoroughly.  Since then, I try to stay open to other ways to learn.

May all beings know peace
Namaste

New Uses for Old Things

My cats and the Friends of Homeless Animals cats have taught me that nothing is waste.  They play with milk bottle caps and the stips of plastic that secure them.  They curl up in litter boxes and in feeding bowls.  The more scared of the cats curl up in litter boxes and literally guard their own turf.  But even my cats at home reuse litter boxes are places to curl up into.  Especially my big cat who is either a Norwegian Forest Cat or a Maine Coon Cat who is too big for most laps.  He loves curling into the box. 

More things that can be recycled include old sweaters.  Take them apart at the seams and then wind the wool up into a ball for a later project.  This is also a lot of fun to do with the cats who want to play with the string jerking along on the floor. 

Hand Juicers can be used to squish whole canned beets to use in salads as well as draining tuna fish for terrific sandwiches and additions to salads. 

Doublesided tape can be used for those pesky art projects that are too expensive to frame if you are unhandy like I am when it comes to wood working.  Talk to me about embroidery and art projects or word work and I can hold my own.  My eyes glaze however when you talk with me about squares and saws and mitre boxes.  And don't even try to talk with me about clamping a frame shut while it is being glued.  I go into complete brain freeze just typing this.

Old tennis balls are great back rubs if you live alone.  Just put them on the floor and lie on top of them wriggling to get the sore places where they to be to get relief. 

More to come as I go through the scraps I have around here.

A Tsumani of Local Proportions

And here in the U.S., we face the budget tsunami caused in primary part by the deceitful practices and unholy alliances between Wall Street and Capital Hill.  And the ripple effect is enormous and just becoming clear to all of us this year.  Wisconsin and Ohio are on the Front Lines but every state has serious budget problems.  The problem started in the 1960s with the entitlement programs.  What most of us don't realize is that many of those programs were shifted from the federal budget to the States.  The federales essentially forced the states to maintain them.  But didn't offer states much support.  States have tried for years to find ways of funding but failed.  If this situation were the Chicago Fire, we would be seeing the firestorm of states failing.  State afte state faces the alarming situation of cutting budgets humanely.  Can they do it without dipping into the extremist politics of Wisconsin and Ohio?  I believe they can by pointing out to the national government that this shortfall comes from long term policies -- not short term bad budgeting.  That is not going to be a popular position but it, sadly, is the truth.  And how, then, will the government be able to pay for these short falls coming back to roost?  Again, I don't know.  Probably raise taxes or cut programs themselves.  America, the land of diminished possibilities.  America, the land of the not free.  Sure, we are free to vote but are we free from Wall Street control and fallout and political doubledealing?  Not now and probably never were.  The old song, "St. Peter, don't you take me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store."

Until all beings know peace, pray for Japan and the victims there
Until all beings know peace, pray for all who have lost in New Zealand, Katrina, and any other global disasters and
Until all beings know peace, pray for all the pets who are put to death due to the Wall Street engendered foreclosures and short sighted landlord policies when it comes to allowing pets to come with their owners.

Namaste

Is it Just Me?

What news agencies are forgetting....Japan is such a small country that what affects one part pretty much affects the whole nation.  Tokyo is only 150  miles away from the Fukushima nuclear plants.  Williamsburg, Virginia is about 150 miles away from Metro DC.  No space to run if something happens like this kind of event.  This is not like Hiroshima.  These are plants built close together on the coast that for whatever reason (tsunami or earthquake) are now at emergency levels that brave plant workers are working to fix.  Such an intense time.  My heart goes out to all who suffer there, who survived but lost everyone and everything, who face situations beyond comprehension.


I am a child of the first generation to grow up after WWII. I grew up near one of the nuclear research facilities in Northern Ohio. We were all very aware of the dangers so the nuclear drills of hiding in hallways and under desks, of listening to the loud booms of jetliners and dropping to the floor, are familiar to me. What was not spelled out at the time was the afterlife issue of radioactivity. That fact didn’t come out until much later.



What worries me about the Fukushima Plants in Japan is that the evacuation zone is so small. That research facility in Ohio? I lived maybe 15 miles away from it and we all knew it would be too close if something dreadful happened. If I were living in Japan right now, even Tokyo (150 miles away) would be too close. Perhaps I am too much a child of my generation to see anything but destruction in nuclear power. I don’t know and cannot judge at this distance how the Japanese government is doing. I do know that the alarmists in California are just that...alarmists. If they were so committed to being scared then why on earth weren’t they up in arms when the state next to them, Nevada, was used for testing? Why weren’t they protesting then? Was it because our own government told us that these air tests were perfectly safe? Ouch! That is exactly what happened. And I fear that is what is happening in Japan today and am sad to see them duped like we were.  


May all beings know peace --
Remember them all in your prayers, folks