Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
It’s simple.
https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/ancient-history/thucydides
Having reviewed But realism is tempered with idealism.
We are indeed tired as a nation of ethical failures in politics. I read my young daughter’s recent IG story. She discusses lesser of two evils in her exhortation to vote. It truly touched my heart.It is so eloquently expressed. As an election official, she placed her safety at risk during COVID and lent her passion for justice to go into positive action to assist at the polls. I saw her visual representation of the small Chinese immigrant child she once was juxtaposed with herself looking down at her volunteer badge. I can only imagine how the rhetoric of hate about China has wounded her. Thucydides would call that kind of hate-mongering unethical. I call it dangerous and destabilizing to our founding principles.
Another immigrant daughter of ours was so reluctant to vote. She spoke to me like this when I asked that she never allow herself to become disenfranchised or marginalized. She stated, “I cannot become any of those things because I do not vote. (There is to me) a false sentiment of power of the individual through voting, especially as a minority.” Again, eloquently expressed and piercing my mother’s heart. With no small measure of encouragement from her sister and me, she posted her “I voted!” sticker shortly thereafter.
We pass the torch to the younger ones. Hopefully speaking, they will make the right things happen to shore up our republic. Should their practical realism threaten their participation in our democratic traditions. Lest they lose faith in our election processes, we all need to continue to question authority’s ethics. Have the hard talks. Teach your children well.
How Climate Migration Will Reshape America https://nyti.ms/3mnhHJd
As a child of the 1970’s, I remember the first Earth Day. And that child within me is scared.
First, about fifteen years ago, I stopped reading National Geographic. The stories of extinction, threatened species and devastated ecosystems was upsetting to me.
Then came the 1980’s and 1990’s with warnings from the climate change scientists. As rapacious human behaviour for greedy corporate profit continued, I felt as if these dire warnings were going to come true.
The scientists said–I remember it clearly–that continued destructive human activity would cause great suffering to mankind on Earth. They said we would see devastating storms, global warming, disrupted weather patterns impacting flora and fauna in our ecosystems and virulent, deadly diseases ravaging human life. Starvation, deaths, pandemics, fires, floods, would become part of everyday life. Nuclear waste would pollute and poison. The oceans would spawn killing storms and flatten everything in their paths. But let’s lighten up with a human geography perspective a moment.
Predictions led to government systems that would fail to effectively cope with the ensuing panic and anarchy. The vacuum of leadership would become subsumed by geopolitical tensions leading to trade wars, rise of oppressive dictatorships. Well? What do you think?
I return to the small child who sang this song.
“Pollution, pollution, they got smog and sewage and mud. Turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud.” “See the halibuts and the sturgeon, being wiped out by detergent. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. But they don’t last long if they try.”
Well, the birds are dropping from the skies in New Mexico. Bees are dying in their hives. Poisons from GMO giants are killing and mutating our children. Bhopal. Syngenta, Monsanto, Round Up, salinization, fast fashion, the Yanomomá, COVID, Escherii coli, C-diff, Staphylococcus aureus, antibiotic-resistent diseases, oil slicks in Mauritius, the great trash patch. Do we have your attention?
Now I could talk about Armageddon, suffice it to say, it is well with my soul. I have used my time on this Earth wisely most of the time. My new song is “It is well, it is well, it is well with my soul.” So, maybe from writing I feel better but with leaving this world to the two young women I’ve adopted and raised, there is still room for doubts. What kind of world are we leaving them to inherit?
Please comment.
A vicious cycle of economics and disease has appeared in front of me. Like a wraith from one of the the departed souls of the pandemic, it whispers that those who have less money in US society will soom be lessened into non-existence. Poor nutrition, cramped, unreliable housing, lack of worker benefits like equal pay, leave and health insurance — all these contribute to threats on the marginalized sectors of society.
The restrictions in the working-class areas, spurred by an especially steep increase in cases there, display yet again the disproportionate impact the virus has had on many poorer communities across the globe. Madrid, September 2020 New York Times, online retrieval Sept. 21, 2020
Hanging out laundry in the sun’s UV rays is a purifier, a good anaerobic workout, and a green initiative. #healthyplanet #healthylifestyle
Learnings on a Wellness Journey