Dealing

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I’m trying to get away from Boston for my own health, but I can’t stay away.  I went home yesterday and could not stop crying.   With my Mom’s passing and all, I really think I am on the brink of PTSD.   I wonder how everyone else is doing?  Have we all reached that point?

All I can say is bravo! to those who went in after the blast when everyone else was running away.  I bow to you.

And to Bill, the 78-year-old whom the video showed collapsing after the blast….who got back up and finished the race….bravo! to you, as well.  And extra Bravo! for even running a freaking marathon while 78-years-old!!  Our aussie friends said it best, when they reportedly said, “Bastards can’t keep Bill down!” A report here from down under.

 

 

The latest on Boston

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A report here from the Boston Globe.  I heard a report of a 5-year-old child sitting with eyes opened, dazed, with his parent lying next to him with a limb blown off.  Good God.

After I left here yesterday, I went to our community room and watched the news coverage of it.  CBS had cameras already there because of the race, so they had footage of the bombs going off.  Mayhem.

It’s just hard to wrap one’s brain around this.  I woke up crying about my Mom this morning. And yesterday.  There’s been another death in the family–an uncle–and I don’t know if it’s just me or if anyone else is just feeling overwhelmed with Newtown and now this. I’m borderline post traumatic, I think.  Too much.

 

 

Genetics and corporations

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Well, if we had any doubt at all, it is true that corporations actually think they own us.  Literally.

What seems like a no-brainer–that you can’t own something you didn’t personally create, as in human beings–somehow becomes less clear once money is involved.

So, because someone wants to make a buck, the human body is patentable?

If that is so….and corporations own my body….who can I sue for being heavy metal poisoned??

 

Finding the Art

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I’m sad to say that I just discovered this today, after having been here three years….but I couldn’t have afforded it, anyway, so it’s bittersweet…

They posted a funny advertisement poster on the grocery’s bulletin board, but I couldn’t find the corresponding poster on their website.  It’s called “Disaster Preparedness” and mocks the rules of Preparedness.   One rule was that there was probably a disaster underfoot if the electricity has been shut off, your cell phone doesn’t work, your neighbors are hysterical, and dogs are no longer running through the streets…:p

This site promotes the films I like.  I love, love, love independent films that aren’t the same old, same old.  I like the ones that make me think–that make me step outside the box….

….and I like the ones that highlight the aspects of society that are not all glamour, such as The Station Agent.   I picked this up at the library, and am sad that I’ll not get to see it anymore once I leave here.  It’s one of those tales that you don’t see that much out of Hollywood–and it’s well written enough that you empathize with Fin without feeling sorry for him.  It’s a wonderful story of friends’ experiences in life–a story of every day people.

 

 

Targets of drones not always criminal

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common dreams has a link up to this McClatchy piece on the targets of drones–an estimated 3,500 people killed.

From the piece:

“The United States has gone far beyond what the U.S. public – and perhaps even Congress – understands the government has been doing and claiming they have a legal right to do,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a Notre Dame Law School professor who contends that CIA drone operations in Pakistan violate international law.

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Mary Ellen O’Conell, from that radical leftwing university of Notre Dame.  :p
More:

The administration has declined to reveal other details of the program, such as the intelligence used to select targets and how much evidence is required for an individual to be placed on a CIA “kill list.” The administration also hasn’t even acknowledged the existence of so-called signature strikes, let alone discussed the legal and procedural foundations of the attacks.

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Does anyone else see the irony of Diane Feinstein being so anti-gun violence a la Newtown, but apparently thinks drone strikes are okay??
I also have an issue with calling drone strikes “self defense”.  It is self defense when you are face to face with someone and they are coming at you with fists, guns, or knives–then by all means, you have a right to defend yourself.  But hiding a thousand miles away in some darkened room with television monitors while you pull the trigger….um, no…not self defense in my book.  It’s cowardly.

In passing…

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…overheard just now in the library:

A grandmother is checking out books with her 4 year old granddaughter.  Granddaughter pipes up that she was promised candy.

Grandma says, “I must have been delirious….”

bwahahaha.

Teachers in D.C.

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…protesting the corporate take over of public schools.  Good for them.

A tweeter has a link up to The Nation’s take on it.

From the article:

The growing movement against corporate-style education reform has its work cut out for it. It is, after all, challenging an insidiously well-messaged behemoth funded by billionaires and sanctioned by both major political parties.

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Word.

How does one fight against something that both parties are for?  How does one fight against politicians who have not taught in a classroom, but seem to believe they know better than educators what our kids need?  And how does one fight against willful ignorance on their part when it is soooo obvious that No Child Left Behind is a colossal failure?

My prior posts on education here. And here. And here–profit factor. And here – about the kids who were most impacted by NCLB not graduating on time and dropping out.

No Child Left Behind is not about giving kids a well-rounded education with math, reading, art and music, and physical exercise, but going through the motions of educating kids with tests that don’t come close to evaluating what  a child’s potential truly is….

…worse than that, it pigeonholes kids, who are still developing, into boxes.  It takes away their uniqueness as human beings.  It does not recognize the potential because that is impossible to “test” for–their potential is the unexplored parts of themselves that they —and the world—have yet to discover.

I’m fifty years old and still have not reached my potential. 🙂