Blog Archives

Who Cares?

10/30/2018

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
from:The Diary of a Young Girl
written by Anne Frank
Doubleday/Bantam Books, 1967
(first published, 1947. first US edition, 1952)

   One of the most famous Holocaust poems of all time, "First They Came for the Jews," was written by a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
   Even after recanting his support for Hitler and Nazism, Niemöller was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly avoided execution and was liberated by the Allies. He stayed in Germany and worked as a clergyman, pacifist and anti-war activist. In his 1946 book, Niemöller talked publicly of Germany’s guilt for what had happened to the Jews. He was one of the first Germans to do so.

First They Came For The Jews
by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
   I found the text of the poem and information about Niemöller here:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust (Accessed on October 29, 2018.)
Here is a modern adaptation:
When they came for the Jews and the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and the protestors, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and the dancers, I turned away
And when they came for me, I turned around and around, and there was nobody left...
(published in Hue and Cry, 1991)
You can find some other adaptations here:
http://webweaversworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/first-they-came-for-jews-variations-on.html
Or write your own.
Please share!
   Shooting and killing praying people in a synagogue . . . because they were Jewish. I never thought that could *really* happen. But it did. In 2018. In the town next door to me.
   I’m struggling with how to turn my anger, fear, pessimism, and grief into action.
   I signed up to make phone calls for Everytown for Gun Safety. https://everytown.org You can, too.
-—stay curious (and caring)

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Smooth As Silk

10/23/2018

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. . .Why can’t we unwind the cocoons after the moths come out?
               . . .
   The moth gets out by making a hole in the cocoon, right? To make a hole . . .it spits out this chemical that dissolves the silk and makes a hole. And the hole goes through all the layers of silk, see? So instead of one nice long thread, you’d end up with a million tiny short pieces that you couldn’t sew with. Silk farmers never let the moths come out—-that would ruin everything. Get it?
from The Mulberry Project
by Linda Sue Park
   Clarion Books, 2005
  In ancient days, from around 200 BCE until the sixteenth century CE, travelers and merchants carried goods and ideas (and even some good ideas!) from Shanghai across northern China to the Middle East and eastern Europe. They brought luxury items, most notably silk, and spices and took home wool, gold and silver. They traveled in caravans, rarely going the whole distance, but finding trading partners along the way.
   In 2013, President Xi Jinping announced that the Silk Road would be reborn as the Belt and Road Initiative. In what some see as a massive move to gain world trade dominance in goods ranging from cotton to petroleum products, China is planning to invest something in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars. So far, sixty-eight countries have signed on. Since 2013, China has loaned about forty billion dollars a year to developing countries.
“The deals are construction contracts, typically for large-scale infrastructure projects, such as air and sea ports, road networks, energy and petrochemical development, power plants, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and real estate, and even a digital silk road with fiber optic cables and telecommunication facilities, and satellite links.” https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/trumps-principled-realism-versus-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative#gs.QcfnwPc
  But Pakistan, Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan all owe vast amounts of money to China to repay their loans. If a debtor country cannot make timely payment of principal and interest, China will take over ownership of the project..
   Whether a new railroad project through Vietnam, a nuclear power plant in Egypt, or pipe-line projects in Malaysia, country after country is building up debt to China. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/why-the-civil-nuclear-trap-is-part-and-parcel-of-the-belt-and-road-strategy/
   So, how does all of this affect us? China and the United States have a long history of trade partnership. “Made in China” is stamped or sewn onto everything from dog food to dishes to doll clothes.
   The Trans Pacific Partnership was a regional trade agreement involving the U.S. and 11 other Asian-Pacific countries. Together they comprised 40 percent of the world's economic output. The TPP’s purpose was to update and expand rules for trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific. Our previous administration made sure the US would be at the center of regional rules development. It would have supported the economic development of our allies and reaffirmed our commitment to the area. Now the TPP continues without the United States.
   According to the Brookings Institution, the decision by the current administration to recognize the Belt and Road Initiative in the new US-China trade agreement compounds uncertainty in Asia and raises further questions about US economic and strategic goals for the region. https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-one-belt-one-road-initiative-a-view-from-the-united-states/
   And we’re in a trade war with China. Our administration has imposed tariff after tariff on goods received from China. Solar panels and airplane parts are more expensive for manufacturers. The price of washing machines and flat-panel TVs have gone up for the rest of us.
   Like it or not, our world is made of sovereign nations, each looking out for themselves. We owe it to our grandchildren to be good neighbors, looking out for each other, too.
   Please vote your conscience on November 6.
-— stay curious! (and informed)

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Weather or Not

10/16/2018

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Tuesday, the storm came.
I never saw such turmoil
on the sea--
dark water snarling at us
and grabbing whatever it could
in the white claws
of its waves.
from: Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles
written by Shari Green
Pajama Press, Inc. 2016

My older daughter spent her 21st birthday hunkering down in the midst of Tropical Storm Josephine. Winds reached a peak of 70 miles per hour (the mildest hurricane clocks in at 74), and we were scared. We don’t have hurricanes in Ohio.
   We have tornadoes, though, but that’s a topic for another day.
   Hurricanes are formed by a complicated mix of climate and weather variables. Warm waters are a key ingredient to fuel storms. And the Atlantic Ocean is at its warmest in September, after a summer full of warm/hot weather. But hurricanes are also influenced and steered by massive global trends, like el Nino and others, that are hard to predict. Temperature differences between the surface and the higher reaches of the atmosphere also play a role.
   While predicting the number of hurricanes per season is more accurate than ever, what is much harder to predict is how fierce the winds will blow and how fast or slowly the storm will travel. Seems like, on average, storms are getting fiercer and slower (wetter). Scientists do not agree that this has reached “trend” status, though.
   Our climate is changing. Even those in the highest government office reluctantly admit that. Here’s a quote from 60 Minutes last Sunday (10/13/18): "But it [climate change] could very well go back. You know, we're talking about over a million ... years.”
   But he won’t admit that any part of it is man-made. Even though NASA’s website says:
       Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree*: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.   https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
   The answer “from the top” is "You'd have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda.” (from the same 60 Minutes broadcast)   https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/14/politics/trump-60-minutes-interview/index.html
   So I say, “What political agenda?”
   Mobilizing FEMA to provide shelter, clean water, and rebuild destroyed power lines and infrastructure? Puerto Rico is still suffering from last year’s storm. Many parts of mainland US have not recovered yet, either.
   Getting the government to provide more tax dollars to help people rebuild damaged property and damaged lives? So voters will support candidates who appear caring and helpful?
   Supporting the coal industry with regulation roll-backs allowing more noxious pollutants into the air? The United Nations issued a “dire climate report last week urging a drastic reduction in carbon emissions and phasing out fossil fuels to limit catastrophic global warming.”
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-climate-scientists-political-agenda-2612537150.html
   We’re at the tail-end of Hurricane Season. It runs from June 1 through November 30 each year.
   But we are not even at the beginning of being able to work together to solve this “huge” world problem.
   We need to stay in the Paris Agreement. We need to talk and write to our congressional legislators. We need to be our own advocates, and each other’s.

—-stay curious! (and actively involved)

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Questions and Answers

10/9/2018

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Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?
  from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
by Bill Martin
illustrated by Eric Carle
Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1983

   How do we find our about anything? Ask a question.
   How do we learn what our best friend is thinking about? Ask a question.
   How do we find our way when we’re lost? Ask a question.
   Is the newest best-seller worth my time?
   What’s the weather like where I’m planning my vacation?
   Which flowers will grow best in my garden?
   Questions…Questions…Questions
   Before I retired, most of my day (besides story time) was spent answering questions. Lots of times, people did not form good questions. If I wanted to give a good answer, I had to ask questions, sometimes lots of questions.
   And if I asked the wrong question, I might (probably) give wrong information.
   The same principle is at work at home. Sometimes, if my husband is going out, I’ll ask him when he expects to be home. What I really want to know is what time he wants to eat dinner.
   I can assume he’s planning on being home in time for dinner, but if the answer I get is 4:00 or 3:00, I’ll need to ask another question. If I had asked the right question “What time do you want to eat dinner?” I would have gotten, right off the bat, the information I needed to be able to organize my own afternoon.
   Of course, I could say, “Let’s eat out,” and avoid the entire issue.
   We saw (heard) many examples of answer-avoidance a couple of weeks ago. It really doesn’t matter who asks the questions. It could even be the FBI! The principle is the same. Ask the wrong questions, get the wrong answers.
   Some examples:
   1. Answering a question with another question deflects focus from the answerer back to the questioner. “I don’t have a drinking problem. Do you?”
   2. Answering a different question is an effective way to change the subject. “Do you want him in the room?” “He already provided sworn testimony.” Also, not answering accomplishes the same thing.
   3. Repeating a question or just repeating a phrase can make even a big lie sound true. It usually adds confusion to an already confusing conversation. “I’m innocent” even though a hearing is very different from a trial.
   Most politicians, even the good ones, (and I think we still have some of those) have a knack for using avoidance techniques. And they practice them for good or, more often ill.
   But since when is a judge a politician? Not to say a judge is not allowed to have an opinion, but surely, he or she should have the good sense to be impartial and honest, or at least appear so.
-—stay curious! and please vote!

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Gender Rules/Gender Roles

10/2/2018

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Here’s what my father taught me about courage. It has everything to do with who you decide you are.
   . . . You may be told that you don’t matter, but you can choose to matter.
   And you may think that you’re alone, but if you have courage, you have yourself to lean on.
   from Wild Blues
   written by Beth Kephart
   interior illustrations by William Sulit
        Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2018

   The other day I spent a little time with a woman I only know slightly. She mentioned that she was still working so I asked her where she works. A major for-profit hospital she said. So we talked all around that, for a short time. A for-profit hospital which had been bought out and bought out again was closing up in my town. Not enough money on their bottom line, or something. She felt secure in her position, though.
   Then I did the unthinkable. For me, anyway. I asked her if she is a nurse. She said No. A medical technician. I still don’t know what she actually does every day, but before she told me that, I assumed she was a nurse. Because she’s a woman. My eyes popped open (literally and figuratively). I was appalled and apologized for my sexist assumption. She was very nice and assured me there are lots of male nurses. I added that there are lots of female doctors, too. Then we went onto the grandchildren or some other non-threatening topic.
   I’ve been thinking about that conversation in light of last Thursday’s senate hearings. The way men treat men, the way women treat women, and the way we both treat each other (and the way we treat ourselves, too, probably) is largely determined by the people around us.
   During the 1960s and 70s lots of women found their voices, but found lots of opposition, too. Seemed like everyone had some bone to pick or ax to grind and seemed like everyone was angry. Angry demands were usually met with angry threats and, when we weren’t marching, everyone stood around glaring in a hands-on-hips pose, occasionally waggling a finger, but not accomplishing very much.
   Thursday we watched (heard) a frightened but extremely composed woman describe a horrible and traumatic incident from her past. Because she has a social conscience. Because she cares about fairness. Because she mustered up the courage to tell a story with the possibility of major consequences.
   Then we watched (heard) a blubbering, angry man assert he had no part in her story, let alone a dominant and powerful part.
   It matters very much who is telling the truth. And it matters very much who we believe. And it matters a lot who has power and who does not. And it matters that it took as long as it did for the story to come to light. Reasons abound for keeping something so ugly and so personal so closely guarded.
   It all comes down to power. Power is not relinquished readily or easily. Since the activism of the 1970s, and since #MeToo, especially since #MeToo, we need to keep marching.
   The cynical skeptic in me thinks she knows how this will end.
I hope I’m wrong.
   We all, men and women, need to find our courage. And we need to exercise it, just like we exercise our brains and muscles. Too much is at stake to hesitate.
—stay curious! (and informed)

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"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
Author, Advocate, Advisor

Who Cares?

Smooth As Silk

Weather or Not

Questions and Answers

Gender Rules/Gender Roles

I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

Archives

"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world." Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020 ​Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020 Author, Advocate, Advisor

Who Cares?

Smooth As Silk

Weather or Not

Questions and Answers

Gender Rules/Gender Roles

I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

Archives

"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
Author, Advocate, Advisor