Category: Culture

Categories
Connecting

Hands

Chris’ friend Rick is hurt quite badly from the Bali explosion. He has burns over 45% of his body, and has received injuries to his head, lungs, and other organs.

Rick could be in intensive care in Australia for a couple of months before being allowed home to Canada. Once he returns home, he’ll need to have additional treatment, considerable treatment. An added difficulty is that Rick is far away from his family and friends, who have to fly back and forth to be with him, most likely having to stay in hotels when they visit him.

I can’t stop Bush wanting to wage war, and I can’t stop terrorists from wanting to blow up innocent people, and I can’t stop people wanting to kill each other, but there is one thing I can do:

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Categories
Connecting People

Slow waking from a nightmare

Chris’ weblog has become a clearing house for information about his friend, Rick who was seriously hurt in the Bali explosion. As people who knew Rick leave comments, the person who Chris knows becomes someone we know. He’s isn’t faceless. There is no insulation from the pain and the horror of the Bali blast through emotionless news broadcasts, and political speeches.

Our sorrow and our grief for the families of those impacted by this act against humanity transcends old, stale borders of “warblogger” and “peace blogger”, and when I read Meryl and Dawn I am reminded that we all ultimately want the same thing in the end: peace.

Jonathon wrote today:

I can hardly bear to watch TV. Every time I switch on a television news or current affairs program, I cry.

And I read that, and I wanted to cry again.

Now is not the time to talk of war and revenge and anger and hatred. Now is the time to grieve and sorrow and hold each other and give each other comfort. Next week is next week, and we’ll go our politically separate ways, again.

But for today, today, it’s time to grieve.

Categories
Connecting Weblogging Writing

Bali

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Dave Winer starts a posting today with the title Whining Matilda, in response to the — legitimate — complaints of lack of coverage of the Bali bombing in the American press. He writes:

There are plenty of Australian weblogs. The Web is worldwide. Cover it, explain it, grieve it, if the US press isn’t covering it, route around them. Use the tools.

Dave, I’m sorry, but you sadly missed the point.

The vast majority of the people in this country have never heard of weblogs. It isn’t up to weblogs to provide the news because the American press focuses only on American pain. And by focusing only on American pain, we complete a picture that most of the world has of us: that we’re shallow, self-centered, egotistical isolationists who only care for our own dead, our own pain.

Dave, It isn’t that webloggers aren’t getting news; that’s not the point. It’s that the world sees that Americans don’t care.

But we do care. And we care even more every time we see a new face among the dead, read about someone else’s loss.

I’ve wanted to talk about this bombing for the last two days, but just didn’t know what to say. The words wouldn’t come. Today, though, I was reminded that, sometimes, it doesn’t matter that we speak eloquently, just that we speak.

To my friends who live in Australia and in Indonesia, and to all of those in the world who have lost loved ones, my deepest and most sincere sympathy. To all those who have been injured, my strongest hopes that you heal quickly, and find peace from the pain and the fear.

Categories
Diversity

Skin deep

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Dorothea is on a roll! And aside from the fact that she rolled over my foot (in the nicest possible way) I like what she has to say. I, also, want nothing more than to be valued because of me, of what I am, rather than how I look.

When people look into my eyes I want them to see gentleness, or love, or intelligence rather than their color, or their shape, or the length of the lashes. When they look at my face, I hope they see humor, sadness, or joy rather than the shape of my face or the height of my cheekbones or the width of my mouth and the thickness of my lips. And when people look at my body, I would hope that they see pride and strength and determination and compassion rather than curves and breasts and skin color and height.

Dorothea writes:

Fundamentally, though, redefining pretty is not my fight. I want to be ugly and not have it matter. I want my sexual attractiveness to remain a private affair between myself and my sex partner, rather than being speculated upon by every person who so much as passes me on the street or wants to toss my blog a quick compliment. I want “bonita” and “fea” alike paired with “estar,” not “ser,” and even when the pairing is “estar bonita” I want the reaction to be fleeting and tacit, not character-defining and public.

If I disagree with Dorothea, and I think disagreement isn’t the correct term, it’s on the whole concept of ugly. Am I ugly? No. Well, then, am I beautiful? No. I don’t think there is any standard for absolute beauty or absolute ugliness, so how can I be one or the other? And as for our fit within today’s slide rule of physical conformity, does it really matter? For myself, I like me, and isn’t that what’s important?

Anne McCaffrey, popular Sci-Fi and Fantasy author, has about the best bio I have ever seen, for anyone:

My hair is silver, my eyes are green and I freckle: the rest of me is subject to change without notice.

That about sums all of us up: subject to change without notice.

We are each of us what we are, and we should be happy being what we are, the best of whatever it is we are. I would hope that those who care for me would see beyond how I look –regardless of perceived ‘good’ or ‘bad’ physical characteristics — to what I am and realize to themselves that this is truly what’s important.

Is this the same as Dorothea’s statement:

Permission to be plain, even in my own eyes. That, to me, is the self-acceptance that Burningbird wants to instill in me over coffee.

I think it is.

Added:

My mistake in previous readings of Dorothea’s posts, and for which I received gentle chastisement, is that when I read Dorothea’s statements about seeing herself as plain or ugly, I immediately wanted to say, “Dorothea! How can you say this about yourself?” Yet, Dorothea wasn’t making statements about her self worth only her perceived view of her appearance. I mixed the two up in my mind, and I put a value assessment on ‘plain’ and ‘ugly’—the very thing I just got through saying wasn’t important.

Now I think I know what Dorothea’s saying. There are times when you do have to hit me in the face with a wet mackerel for me to get the point.

(And Dorothea, Castilian hot chocolate still works for me.)

Categories
Diversity Writing

Mockingbird

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Years ago I watched a movie that would have such a profound effect on me, that I could later flag memories by their occurrence in time before or after this event. The movie was To Kill a MockingBird, starring Gregory Peck. Unfortunately, the local library didn’t stock the book, so reading the actual story had to wait until we moved to Seattle. However, the book, as with the movie, became a personal favorite.

The strongest memory I have from watching the movie when I was younger, was the rabid dog and Atticus’ killing of it. Somehow, the violence associated with the dog, it’s madness and the necessity of having to put it down, became connected in my mind with the other acts of violence. The dog, the lynching crowd, Bob Ewell, the conviction of Tom Robinson — all acts equally mad, though some events were varnished with the pine-tar scent of righteous justice.

I also felt an identity with this movie, odd as this might sound. I grew up in a small town, though mine was in Northeast Washington rather than the South. Like Scout, I was a also a tomboy — spending my summers in adventure, wearing dresses only under protest, and able to out wrestle many of the boys my own age. In addition, I had one older brother and like Scout, would spend much of my free time unsupervised, supposedly safe within the boundaries of the mind set of a small town in the 50’s. There were also other similarities between Scout’s tale and mine, but I’ll leave that for my online book Coming of Age in John Birch Country.

(I am such a tease.)

For now, I want to direct your attention to Loren’s wonderful multi-part review of the book, beginning with his astute introduction:

If Harper Lee had limited her portrayal of prejudice and discrimination merely to the trial of Tom Robinson, a victim of the most virulent form of racial prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird would probably be little more than a historical footnote. Wisely, though, Lee manages to tie racial prejudice to the many other forms of prejudice we all face every day of our life.

You’ll have to scroll down to get to the first part. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with a movie, an old favorite of mine.