FAMILY HISTORY

Why do people worry about geneology?
Lots of reasons:

• Sometimes they want to find that rich or famous person that proves they ARE someone.  Good luck with that one. 
• Sometimes they are that branch of the tree that fell off.  Parents or grandparents moved away never to return, married, had children, then died and the offspring are too alone.  They yearn for their roots.  They yearn to find their people and be part of a family again.
• Sometimes they have heard family stories and want to verify them or prove them wrong.
• Sometimes they are just plain obsessive/compulsive and start a project that ultimately has no end.
• Sometimes they just love history--all history.

A friend from an homogeneous culture told me that no one from that culture worried about geneology.  She said they all knew where they came from and who their ancestors were.  She understood how people in my country would do it since we are all intermixed.  I wondered what she could tell me about her great-great-grandmother---besides that she came from the same culture as everyone else in her family.  I didn't ask her.  It seemed rude to ask.  

 

But my little journey into personal family history taught me alot about my relatives and lots about the regular people that lived in this country before me.  The history books tell you nothing about regular people, history books are full of BIG moments and BIG people and little moments in BIG people's lives--many of which, like Washington's cherry tree cutting, never even happened.

Family history should be real history.  I have seen some older books that were vanity printed; some were good, honest, warts-and-all histories.  Others were prim, proper, with whole branches eliminated due to less than braggable moments.  Searching for and writing about family history should be about self-discovery.  If you are not brave enough to go to the store without full battle makeup, you may not be ready for what your family history reveals. 
There are no benefits to finding and writing an abridged family history.  You might as well just take up something purely creative.

I have heard people argue that geneology is NOT Real history unless there is some BIG moment.  Everyone's family was here for the BIG moments.  EVERYONE'S!

My mother loved telling me about the night that "The War of the Worlds" was on the radio-live.  She knew it was a fictional story, but it was quite dramatic, and her own father got a little revved up before she convinced him it was like a movie.  Apparently, quite a few people had a problem with mistaking that particular production as a genuine live reporting event.  Must have been a little like walking into a showing of "The Blair Witch Project" and thinking it was a news program.

That was history.  That was what her family was doing during that bit of history.  For some people, they would have slept through it, others got out their guns or shivered in their beds.  Everyone alive at that time was somewhere doing something.  History is all about perspective.

Our family history helps to connect us to our roots.  Roots provide sustenance.  They ground us.  They anchor us.  They connect us to the space-time continuum. 

I have heard people say--"I don't have a family history, I'm adopted".  They are still connected.  They KNOW, if they just think about it, that their family goes back to the beginning of humans, just like everyone else's family does.

 If you don't know your history and can't find your history,  it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  It just is a mystery.  If you are really disturbed by the mystery, you can do things like one of the autosomal genetic tests or you can dig really hard--this might actually be a bad thing, as our search for our history should not take over our lives and the brick walls of adoptions can be pretty hard and frustrating.  You can borrow your spouses history or your adoptive family will most likely be glad to share theirs.  Or you can make one up--just remember to keep it real, none of that kings and heros and famous actors crap.

Knowing about the people we came from can help us recognize our strengths and appreciate the diversity of our quirks and strangities.  It can also help us be less judgemental, less arrogant, and less certain of our own superiority. 

Anything that makes us more aware of who we are, what we are, and where we fit into the larger picture is a good thing.  And in those BIG history moments, those BIG historic people were larger than life--the rest of the time, they were just eating, sleeping, toileting, doing chores and pondering the very same things the rest of us were.

mY LITTLE theory (or "what am I afraid of")

I love science fiction.
 I have read a lot of it.
I have watched a lot of it.

I have noticed that the very early science fiction eventually bears a striking resemblance to the NEW present.

My theory is:  If we can imagine it, it can happen"

My fear is;
 


                   


                                                                                      
   

And yes, I know they aren't real.

Yet.

climate change--why do we believe it, why do we not believe it,

A lot has been said about climate change in the last 5 years.  Most of us had heard the term, in close association with greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and the size of our carbon footprint, before it became a political issue.

Most of us had sort of believed it, made tiny concessions like  not running the car in the driveway while getting ready for work, not eating on nothing but Styrofoam plates, not making 10 trips to the store for 10 items, recycling--when it was easy and convenient or they paid us; that kind of thing.

Most of us sort of believed it because it made sense.

Many of us didn't want to believe it because it meant we needed to do something different.  We had help not believing.  Some of our leaders, the same leaders that told us that sugar was good for us and cigerette smoke wouldn't hurt you and the only moral way to stop kids from getting pregnant or catching a disease was to not have sex until they were married, have found scientists to back them up.

Scientists like money as much as the next guy.  While scientific purists wouldn't do it, those scientists that have no problems making bombs, no problem cheating on their research for drug safety and no problem swearing to a theory that others find ridiculous, can always be counted on to say what the guy with the money wants them to say.  Being a scientist doesn't guarantee ethical behavior or honesty.

The problem with climate change is:

1. it is pretty slow
2. it is mostly not very dramatic
3. it looks a lot like the normal variation from one year to the next.
4. in geologic time--we have already had climate change--we think 5 times so what is the big deal, and humans didn't cause them (the dinosaurs are still dead, the endless waters parted, the ice age helped create racial diversity, and who knows how many species never left a single fossil so its like they never existed 

The reason that powerful people want to deny climate change is obvious.  Their business models are all based on doing what we do now the way we do it now.

It's very profitable NOT to have to redo the factories, NOT to have to change the materials we use in the widgets we sell for massive profit, NOT to have to pay for research and development of new ways to do things that aren't so hard on the ecosystems of the earth.
And--they do NOT want to sell the idea of "LESS IS MORE", selling less does not make more profit.  They like there consumers buying more, More, MORE!

We may have all quaked at the number of shoes Imelda Marco had in her closet in 1986, but these days, that just meant she was a hoarder, if she had bought 365 pairs a year and thrown them out or sent them to Goodwill after one wearing, no one would even raise an eyebrow these days.
We buy more.  We make more trash than ever.  We use disposable, and these days, everything is disposable.

We Consume!!!  WE ARE LOCUST!

What would we do with ourselves if our lives were not the way they are now?  (be bored? write blogs? volunteer at the shelter? take a class? talk to a friend? make something out of used stuff?)

Those of us that are comfortably consuming; buying and buying, driving and driving, eating and tossing, trashing and discarding---we are living the life of ease.  Or at least the life the media tells us is a sign we have succeeded.

Those of us that are not able to buy whatever we want, that are shopping in goodwill, cooking instead of buying prepared, have a goal of becoming the media darling that has no worries about such things.  Success is just around the corner.

Those of us that are trying to be less wasteful, trying to eat more earth-friendly foods, grow our own, cook our own and compost the remains; that limit their consumption of widgets, buy used, recycle, walk more, ride bikes, read labels and avoid buying products with excess packaging, chemical additives, poor production processes--we are ridiculed as eccentric, weirdo's or avoided as outright crazy.

We want to be the person on the American TV drama.  Not the geek on the sitcom, not the pathetic creature on lifetime that needs saving--unless she is also rich and beautiful, but the rich, powerful man or woman that is living the American dream.

In the American Dream, there is no Climate change, just endless seasons of love, beauty, human drama and consuming of products. 

If you can't be rich and greedy, you can always be shallow and consuming.

Remember, the earth made it through the other instances of climate change.  It was still here, changed but here. 

The Dinosaurs, Trilobites, Mammoths are not.

GO EARTH!

BLACK LIVES MATTER-ALL LIVES MATTER-POLICE LIVES MATTER-WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

I'm recycling this, as it came at a time not unlike where we are this week.  The aftermath led to a year of my sister and I barely speaking.  If you have family that are Police Officers, I hope they are good ones and that you don't think you have to choose to be OK with dead black people out of loyalty.
Black Lives Matter;  "All lives Matter", "Police (blue) lives Matter".  The latter became the response, usually shouted back at those supporting the BLM movement. 

How does responding to the "Black Lives Matter" activism with "all lives matter" or "Police lives Matter" and even the photo of the police officer walking up in the mirror of a car that says "his life matters" create a hostile response?

The Black Lives Matter" movement  was started  in 2012 after a man shot and killed an unarmed black teenager and was acquitted due to Florida's "Stand you Ground" law. Stand your ground, apparently even in a public place that you both have an equal right to be in. The man that did the shooting, George Zimmerman, 
was a part of the local police's neighborhood watch group.  (see link for more details).  He since went on to be the subject of more criminal behavior--but who could have guessed that would happen(🙄🙄🙄)

 After the acquittal, Alicia Garza is credited as having inspired the slogan when  she posted on Facebook: "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter, Black Lives Matter."

I can hear the tone of what she wrote.  It is not a tone that says "we matter more", but one that says,"what happened was not ok, it is not ok to kill us, we are people too and our lives are as important as everyone else's."

When the "Black Lives Matter" activists started appearing at the places in which black people were killed or maimed for reasons that few nonblack persons would find believable and no rich, white person would face, protesters began the "all lives matter" slogan.  It was a response to the original cause; a way of saying "hey, we all matter, you have nothing to complain about."  It probably made the nonblack people shouting think they were being colorblind, when, in fact, it proved they were merely blind to institutional racism.

If you have never been stopped for being in a car because you look too ethnic for the neighborhood or been treated with disrespect because the person that pulled you over feels that they can talk to you like you did something horrible--drugs, alcohol, shot someone--but the pull over was for forgetting to put the sticker on you license tag; if you have never had to warn you teenage children  to not do anything in their car that might get them beat in the head or thrown to the ground,  then you really don't have a clue what it means to be black person in a country that is pseudo-colorblind.

But the third protest cry--" Police Lives Matter".  That is pure denial.  The NYPD officers that started selling the t-shirts that say that said it was in response to growing lack of respect for police and "people don't appreciate us the way they should"

My response to that is:
1. Respect is earned by individuals not given to a group because of their membership in that group.  You have a career.  If you act in a professional manner, people will show you respect.  If you act like your uniform entitles you to cuss people out, hit them, shove them, belittle them and treat them as lesser creatures than yourself, you deserve NO respect.
2.  Appreciation is also earned.  We agree to work for money and benefits.  If you want appreciation in addition to that, do appreciably more than the job calls for.  We all have jobs.  "Should" is a word used by truculent tweens.

Lets look at statistics.
Using the FBI reporting, between 1980 and 2014 the average number of felonious Police Officer deaths was 64 per year.  This was for the 50 states plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
In 2003 the number of deaths was 52.
In 2008 it was 41.
In 2011 it was 72. (the only year in the recent that was above the average.
In 2012, after the beginning of "Black Lives Matters", there were 48 Felonious Officer deaths--44 by gun, 2 by vehicle and 1 with bare hands/feet, and 1 with a knife.
That is national over a year.  We have lost 100,000 in three months to a virus in 2020)
In 2013 there were 27 felonious Officer Deaths, (new group--7 by ambush--no warning) 26 with guns, 1 by vehicle, (25 of the killers are already arrested or dead).
In 2014 there were 51 felonious Officer Deaths, (8 by ambush) 46 by gun, 4 by vehicle, 1 by bare hands, (All killers already arrested or dead)
The 2015 numbers from the FBI are not yet available, but if you search for the 2015 Officer deaths, you will pull up a string of media sites discussing recent years of spiking  officer deaths.  (We have not seen a year over the average since 2011).  In 2018, there were 53 shot and 2 beaten to death, so the number have not grown in the last few years.

The FBI did not put any statistics about the killers so it is unknown what their race, age, culture, or even sex was.

It is harder to track the killing of unarmed black men, unarmed men, or unarmed people of any kind.
There is no government function that tracks the excessive use of force by local police.  Since BLM began, they have been seeking a national tracking of this but for some reason, probably the same reason the CDC is not allowed to study gun violence, it is not allowed.
Most of us didn't know we weren't tracking police caused deaths until the death of Michael Brown.
If you do an internet search, you will find this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicholasquah/heres-a-timeline-of-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-over#.kvlPGE4d3

http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men

 http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/young-black-men-killed-us-police-highest-rate-year-1134-deaths

http://www.mintpressnews.com/776-people-killed-by-police-so-far-in-2015-161-of-them-unarmed/209127/

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootin


http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

 http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150808-cases-of-24-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-this-year.ece

There are many more articles available now.

In my own county, an unarmed man was killed on video by a favored (read wealthy and contributing) volunteer to the sheriffs department.  The petitions that were passed around and signed by enough people to lead us to a sheriffs election this year, were carried by people of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities.  The Sheriff was replaced and the volunteer was found guilty of manslaughter and received a sentence of 4 years.  He would be out by now. 
That same year, 2016, a Tulsa police officer shot an unarmed black man, it was captured by helicopter, with sound, the video is still to be found, but when it first happened, the one that went out made it obvious she was in no danger.  She was fired, acquitted, and promptly got a job with a police department 20 miles away---training their officers.


So what is my point?  Here are a couple of stories about police shootings.

If you dig around in these stories, you find things like--
"Officer and his father and cousin shot when at a private residence, 3 people tried to steal a motorcycle and the police family started shooting, off-duty--over a motorcycle--over a motorcycle.  If a nonpolice victim and had done the same, they would have spent months trying to figure out who of the 6 involved in the shoot-out should be charged.

Black officer in plainclothes chasing hispanic suspect shot at 6 times---wait for it--by white office in squad car that passed the chase and made assumptions.  Lucky for Mr White Officer, he was cleared and is now a sergeant.

Officer C. Kondek, in Florida, shot and then run over by Marco Antonio Parilla, an hispanic 23 year old, out on probation for drugs and leaving the site of a crash, someone called in a loud music complaint, he was afraid of a probation infraction, scared of jail, so he shot the officer then ran him over--so the prison he was so afraid of is now to be the rest of his life.   2 lives ruined--not counting the families that have to figure out how to put all that into their memory banks without being rather crazy at the end.

But don't misread me.

None of the officers deserved to die.

Not one person has celebrated the death of any officer. (short of one song from 1992--and when you listen to the lyrics, you realize it was the angry rantings of people that had been mistreated by the LAPD when the LAPD was at its most over the top.   (Rodney King) That was it.  )
No one is currently saying anyone should do anything to police officers.

The number of Officer deaths is not up.

And no one has ever been shot by an unarmed black man.

So, yes, all lives matter, but for a lot of people, that is not an expression of a new idea.

The next time you hear "black lives matter", just join them, say it back, chant it with them.

or just be quiet.
Now, a little rap about it all.
https://www.facebook.com/NickCannon/videos/249657193124575/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDE3MDA0Mjg3NjozNTY2Nzg4MzUzMzM2Nzk4/

http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

Little fears from the downhill side of life.

There are plenty of big fears in the media these days--from Trump as president and North Korea's possible nuclear weapon to climate change that floods the coasts and heats up the middle to Death Valley proportions to suddenly finding ourselves slaves in a corporatocracy with no rights promised below the management level.

There is disease, and antibiotic resistance, videos of police shooting unarmed petty criminals and a return to the need for back alley abortions.

There is war moving so many people that the refugees may double the size of the places they are fleeing to, and they are fleeing to places that did not do well in the not-really-over global recession, so people are scared--big fears.

We are scared for our future and our children's futures. We are scared for the loss of lives, animal lives, people lives, plant lives, that we have known and accepted as part of our own lives since our childhoods.

But there are also little fears.  And when you are more than half way to the median life expectancy number, you can count yourself on the downhill side of your life.
I don't consider that to be a negative thing or a reason to give up hope. 

It does give a person a very different perspective.

On the uphill, I couldn't imagine a world without me in it.  My grasp of the time before my birth was more fantasy than history.  Most of those rare moments when I tried to imagine life after my own death, it involved the world standing still, crying and weeping and gnashing of teeth. That was where the giant "THE END" showed up.  No more me?  What is the point.

But from this side of the hill,  after years of history reading and listening to people and watching survivors as they regroup after a loss of a loved one, I get that there is no "THE END" when I die, except for me.  I get that when anyone dies, other lives change but life goes on. 

I also get that the same is true of species.  Dinosaurs might not have gotten it, or maybe they did---I certainly never met one in my life so that conversation never happened.  But what about those "last of their species" currently living out their life.  I suppose they could hope there are others still out there to continue them.  It is certainly in our genes to always try to continue our line--and that if part of being a living thing, not just a human, or maybe I'm anthropomorphizing.   I know we tend to lean toward the opposite of making animals more human, which is really just our own need to make ourselves less animal-like.

But little fears pop up.  Not like they are new to my life, but they are different fears.  Fears like "will I have to deteriorate for a long time in a nursing home?" and will I remember who I am", will young strangers make fun of me" "treat me like I was always so incapable"  "do I have enough time to improve my skills with a paintbrush and can I learn to work with silver?"  "Should I keep trying to find a way to keep this home I love so much, that is just now becoming a place that feeds my soul or should I accept that I can't do everything I want and that is likely to get worse in the coming years"  "will I have enough money to live or will I end up choosing to burden my family or go homeless"

Little fears.  The kind that do not change any part of the world but my own.

The kind that I never thought of on the other side of the hill.

we aren't rats, what are we?

There has been talk of 6th great extinction.  This one is not being caused by meteor strikes, or volcanic ash or an Ice Age.  It is instead, just like everything we buy regularly--manmade.

Estimates are that there are fewer than 3200 tigers left in the wild.  Tigers are dangerous predators and make great coats.

There are about 100,000 gorillas but only 600 of those are the mountain gorillas (like in the movie).  Gorillas are dangerous animals and make great knickknacks.

Giraffes number the same.  Its not like they are good for anything, they just stand around and eat out of trees.

The sperm whale population is thought to number in the hundreds of thousands, but when your backyard is all the seas and oceans of the world, that seems a rather low number.  It is also an estimate due to the difficulties of tracking something with such a large area to wander.  They were hunted for a substance used in perfume and cosmetics.  While legal hunting is no longer a threat, ocean noise, pollution, and fishing equipment accidents are still making their lives dangerous.  They are no longer considered endangered, but are still a vulnerable population. ( Not that it affects most of us humans very much)

Ten years ago, there were about 3500 rhinoceros, but right now, there are only 3 white rhinos, 2 female and 1 male, and the black rhinos are mostly under armed guard due to idiots that prefer rhino horn to viagra.

Of the 44,838 species assessed worldwide using the IUCN Red List criteria, 905 are extinct and 16,928 are listed as threatened to be extinct. Millions of species still need to be assessed to know their status. As a result, the number of extinct and threatened species is definitely much higher than the current estimate. A species of plant or animal is classified Extinct when scientists have concluded the last individual has died. Usually exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times throughout its historic range failed to record an individual, and the species is listed as extinct.

Not all the extinctions are directly related to human hunting prowess, the passenger pigeon and the near extinction of the American Bison were hunting and food related.  The African elephant population is about 10 millions but is in constant danger due to people wanting to buy ivory.  But a lot of extinctions occur because humans want to move into some other species living space.  We destroyed their habitat.

On the flip side of that, the earth is now home to over 7 billion people.   There are probably over 7 billion rats and 7 billion cockroaches, also.  Truly, we humans are the only large creature that is so numerous.  And while we like other humans better than rats and cockroaches, there are some things about us that are worse than either rats of cockroaches.

Rats don't kill other lifeforms to make themselves look pretty or decorate their lairs.
They carry disease, but so do we.
They don't leave the environment cleaner than they found it, but also don't create trash that kills other animals when they are accidentally trapped in it or eat it.
They don't spray deadly chemicals all over to stop other creatures from sharing what they don't want.
They don't destroy food so other animals can't use it.
They don't kill trees.
They don't blow each other up.

So who cares if there are no tigers or elephants or whales or whatever creature disappears forever so we can use more land, have more erections, eat more delicacies and wear more hides?  What does that matter.  What does that do to humans?

Who knows?  

The Purposeful Life

Why do we do so many crazy, ridiculous, meaningless things in our lives.

We work really hard, or try to find a job really hard, or give up and find an illegal job and work really hard or we find a crappy job and try really hard not to work really hard because maybe then, we still have won.

When we meet someone; we get their name and what they do for a living.

We judge each other and ourselves by the hierarchy of the jobs: that is a real thing, but not a real labeled thing.  We all know that the President is at the top and that the President of the Nation is only under the President of the world and the President of the universe. (President can be replaced by any number of hierarchical names like king, emperor, man-made-god, whatever)  and travels downward to the lowest level, which is either beggar man or thief, depending on whether or not you recognize the legitimacy of the organized criminal, in which case the Godfather is similar to President, but not usually at a national level.

I said usually.

Presidents go all the way down to Mom and Pop businesses where one is the president and the other is everything else.  It's still an hierarchy.

Why do jobs and titles and hierarchies mean so much to us humans?  Is it real? Is it just a man-made construct for a group that finds competition necessary to knowing if we are successful?

Is it just a way of avoiding why we are on the planet?

WHY ARE WE HERE?

Why do we struggle?

Why are we only happy when we feel we are valuable, important, purposeful? 

Why do we search so hard for our purpose, for a reason to be?

Why do we think that our life has to be compared to anyone else's life. Is that even possible?  What is a struggle to one person is a given success to another.  

How do we simplify, learn to live as a part of the life on earth and also find our purpose.

We keep hearing about mindfulness.  Being fully in the moment.  Keeping your mind where you are, doing what you are doing, not judging the experience, just feeling it, living it, being it.  It is very similar to what artists describe when they are working on their creation.  Its like the athlete's "Zone". 

We can live there.  Be one with the carrot we are peeling, vacuuming in the "Zone". 

So what about empathy?  If you are mindful, is it possible?  Is it needed?  If you are being without judging, do you need to try to put yourself in the other person's place? 

I don't know if anyone can live mindfully all the time.  But self-awareness is a good start.  Aim for the best you, the noncompetitive best you, the you that is doing everything you do mindfully, but knows when you are not there.  Know yourself: be aware of your own buttons,  your own character flaws, your quirky connections to certain things and aversions to other things that seem to be fine with your friends.

Maybe your purpose is to know yourself--the you that everyone else sees, the you that you see in the mirror, the you that you try hard to pretend does not and has never existed--all of you.

Or maybe being is the only real purpose anyone needs.

Whatever, live with purpose.  You are part of the universe and why-ever you are here, its important.

Is the power of the vote just a lie?

So far, I have watched one state use coin tosses to determine the winner of a vote, and have seen something called a "superdelegate" used to make the loser of the vote have more representation than the winner.
We have voting districts that don't represent the shape of anything except the areas of a place that are most likely to vote for the side creating the voting map.
And if the primary choice of the states doesn't coincide with the established parties plans, they can ignore the primary votes and chose whoever they want.
Then, at the actual election, we the people, who think they are voting for the person they want, are voting for a representative in the electoral college who can vote however they want.
If every single person in the USA wrote in the same name, a 100% agreement, the electoral college would still be able to choose whoever that wanted.

Its time for each person born in the USA to be given the vote at age 18, whether or not they register, we all have a social security number, it should come with a vote.  And if the total vote for a person is higher than the other person, that person should win.

It should not be that if 49% wants one and 51% wants the other, then that state is all voting for the 51% person. 

Every vote should count. 

If the people screw up, it should be because they screwed up, not because the rules were made so convoluted that the people have no idea who won the vote.  And not because they were manipulated by those same rules to feel that the person in office is who most people wanted, so they deserve what they get.

Popular vote may not have worked in ancient Greece, but it was ANCIENT Greece, a place without equality except for the citizens, not the servants, not the slaves, not the females, just the very special citizens.  And it didn't work forever there.

Its time for real equality, real democracy.  Its time for the Vote of the People to be the Truth.

END SLAVERY NOW!!!(didn't we already do that?)

NPR had an article about a man that is working to end slavery.  It was a good story and perhaps the worst story I have ever heard.

Despite the current trend to show slavery in the USA as happy slaves and happy owners, we all tend to view slavery as ending 150+ years ago and good riddance.

Despite many of our exaggerated complaints about our lives and jobs being barely better than slavery--and some of us are living pretty close to the bone, in horrible conditions, without shelter from weather or nutritious food or even potable water, very few of us understand how bad slavery is.  We can imagine, we can empathize, we can be horrified, but most of us have not been there.

So when this person starts talking about current slavery, right now, I'm thinking---OMG! where is this happening?

The slave trade in Africa was officially banned in the early 1880s, but forced labor continues to be practiced in West and Central Africa today. UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children from this region are sold into slavery each year. Many of these children are from Benin and Togo, and are sold into the domestic, agricultural, and sex industries of wealthier, neighboring countries such as Nigeria and Gabon.
  http://www.infoplease.com/spot/slavery1.html

We are not talking about people in low-paying jobs, with poor access to education and very poor  access to opportunities.  We are talking about domestic servants, hereditary slavery where groups of people have been held for generations to work mines, or sold young as concubines, laborers on farms, mines, factories, and sex workers.

When we hear about such things in India,Pakistan, the Sudan, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Mauritania, Arabia, we think, "oh, well of course, those places"  But it is estimated that over 60,000 slave are in the USA.  
http://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/indicators-human-trafficking

The above site on our own government Homeland security page showed the signs of human trafficking, so we can all recognize it and know what to do when we find it.  Who knew we needed that information.  But in my own little geographic area, I have seen a small news storm over a local factory business that had brought in immigrants to work, then fixed it where they couldn't leave, slept on the premises, ate what they were given and had no contact.  Someone got loose is how it was discovered.
More recently, in a strange little recreational vehicle park, they discovered women from another country working as prostitutes that described their own lack of freedoms.  They had been promised jobs and a start in the land of the free, and were being sold by the hour.

It is estimated that there are 60,000 slave in our country right now.  RIGHT NOW!

How can that happen.  What kind of people are all right with using people, owning people, treating people like property?

• The people growing Tobacco  for Phillip Morris (why expect the tobacco industry to care about people, but just because you are addicted to nicotine doesn't mean you don't care.)
• People growing Cotton for Victoria's Secret
• People making electronics in China for Microsoft, XBox, HP, Apple, Nokia (why?  why?  aren't they  fortune 500 companies? don't they make more profit than God?)
• Cotton grown for Forever 21, Aeropostale, Toys R US, and Urban Outfitters
• Cocoa Beans for Hersheys.

Are there others?  The place in my town was making cardboard boxes or some such thing, and 2 towns over is a glass plant where the employees never spoke English and were always escorted in and out by a company manager that did all the talking and paid the bills (shades of small town ER visits)  and the rumors were not good.

Has slavery always been present?  Is it coming back?  Why does it exist?  How can someone do that to someone else?

I'm going to go have a good cry.



 

geniuses and weird vegetables

I listened to an NPR story about the growing of geniuses and their definition--genius is whatever society says it is.  I won't argue--genius isn't genius unless someone recognizes it.  Every family has it's odd ducks, handimen and handiwomen, fixers and makers and thinkers of things that make everyone else say "what???"  Those unique ones are rarely called genius by families, at least not unless the greater community calls them that first.

Among farmers and gardeners and those that make money off of produce, there are all those genius creations--100 pound pumpkins, square watermelons, unbruisable tomatoes, and they get their pictures in the local paper and are trialed by stores and even, in the case of the rubber tomatoes--sold all across the land.  They are genius.

Why?

What about those 100 of pumpkins in the pasture at an old garbage site, the watermelon that is supremely sweet that fluked up in some unknown garden, or the sadness we feel for tomatoes that taste like tomatoes.  What about those untended fruits and vegetables that are amazing to the possums and bears, those blackberries and those pawpaws?

Gifted education, which is not really funded anymore due to its reputation of elitism, is aimed at the top, those people that were identified as the most 3-1%ish  of the population--IQ score wise.  (And the students identified were usually more high achievers than genius--those children will be high achievers where ever you put them.)  In other words, there should be 1-3 individuals in any hundred with genius potential. Of course, we do know that just because we have a test for it, doesn't mean that it is always accurate or that everyone is tested.  We have acres  and acres of unidentified potential geniuses in the world, but since society has not identified them as geniuses, they remain their families' oddities and secret treasures.  They become drug addicts, depressed, outcasts due to not understanding that what is wrong with them, why no one can relate to them, is not something wrong.

Society has always used the "whatever society says it is" to identify genius.  Of those people identified, and we don't go out and try to identify them, so we are already only seeing the tip of iceberg--only a very small number are ever considered to be geniuses.  While most of us think "big bang theory",  "scorpion" is a much better example of the kinds of genius that exist.  For every amazing IQ score, there is a person so capable of understanding behavior that he or she scares his peers, the child so focused on building or making that they never develop the "normal" social skills, the child that must be "slow" because the teacher can't capture their attention in a "normal" classroom.

We are not good with non-normal people.  We like average.  We like those that do what everyone else does and sees they world like they are told to.  We want none of that wandering from the "normal" path and wondering about things that no one else is concerned about.

If you recognize someone you know in this, be kind to them, they might do something truly amazing someday--with sunlight and the right amount of care.

2016 should be Magick!

I thought I would start the year with my version of reality.  I'm aware that I sound crazy to many people when I go off on this particular tangent.

After a 20 year slog through comparative religions, eastern philosophies, western philosophies, mythologies, shamanic practices, animism, and 20th century fads, I found that I had gathered my own set of beliefs.  When an evangelical asks me what religion I am or where I go to church, I explain I have my own religion and go to my own church regularly.  I can say it honestly enough, and few continue their quest to add me to the ranks of their own mega church after that.  (I realize it might be the crazy look in my eye that makes them drop it).

But while it is not a lie, it doesn't fully explain anything.  Early on, I made the mistake of getting more detailed, and those same people that are so very literal with their own holy book, get quite demeaning of beliefs that "stretch the boundaries of believability"  I fully understand that statement, as it is what started the 20 year trip into libraries and esoterica when I was 19.

Amazingly, few of my beliefs are set in stone.  Most of those are fully compatible with physics laws--though perhaps utilizing those holes in what we know to allow for the mystical.  I love that light is a particle and a wave, and that we can't mate Quantum to Relativity---still.  Keep working on it, though, because I'm quite sure that my changeable beliefs can accommodate that.

I like the words GOD and GODDESS, though goddess is currently my favorite, as all the God-headed religions seem to focus on keeping women in roles that are both subservient and convenient to men's usage.  That definitely stretches my boundaries of believability.  It almost defines the reason that those beliefs were not just thought but also spread about and maintained.

I also like Magick and  I like it with the K at the end, because it seems to make it less Vegas and more mystical and amazing.

When I was 17, I wrote a stupid research paper about early hominids focus on God and finding explanations for the world around them.  The whole point was that humans hunt for god, for meaning, not just scientific explanations but a mystical, spiritual connection with the world.  Science explains, but spiritual things connect us.

I knew even then that it was possible that was  some instinct; like the salmon returning to the same place to reproduce or the swan mating for life.  It is part of what makes us human.  It might be some sort of crossed wire that makes our brains need more mystery or purpose, but it is a part of us.

Traditional religion can meet this need, although I think it might be why fundamentalism becomes so insane.  The need for a connection gets warped.  The need for that feeling of connection to something more is not necessarily filled by organs and and hymns, tradition and ritual.  While the beliefs contain stories of Magick--transmogrification, miracles, healings--promises of eternal life, eternal virgins, eternal paradise, they don't really involve current magick, just stories of it.

I think we need to live with magick.

I see a movie where lightning bolts shoot from the mans hands, a witch creates a fog out of dried bat and fresh herbs, an elf touches a snowflake and changes it to a diamond that can guide you to your destination---I'm entranced.  Those things should be possible. When someone annoys me I want to be able to point at them and have their ink pen change to a feather.

So my beliefs include Magick.  Although, like most that believe in Magick in this day and age, I don't expect it to be a fireworks show, but subtle, ritualized, reconnecting me to the earth and the sky.

I think we all need that connection.  Need it with our souls, our spirits, or just our cross-wired neurons, but we feel the need.   We need the mythology to help us, like poetry or art or ritual--feel that connection.  Need the freedom to think things that are not already set in stone, to dream our dreams and wish our wishes and feel a part of the song that is where and when we live.

I'm hunting for Magick this year.  I'm going to find it..