Thoughts about America from an Englishmen

I received this email from my very good friend Will this morning. Will is an older gent who lives in Wales and who has seen a good bit of the world in his lifetime.  I have to say, much of what he said I agree with.  It's almost difficult to explain to people who don't live here, how stupid-crazy things have gotten in our country.


From Will: I was sat watching TV last night in my studio with next doors cat satting on my lap when I was just so over come with tears running down my cheeks. What I saw was so tragic that I couldn’t even get it out to tell my wife later. It was all about the homeless in the USA. People living in storm drains in Las Vegas and tented cities in the Mid West and the most tear jerking of all was this field in the dark of night where thousands of cars and people parked up to wait for a huge barn to open its doors at six in the morning for free medical and dentistry care. An Englishman it seems runs this operation and if anyone deserved a knighthood it’s him! What a wonderful man!


How can the richest country in the world treat its poor so appallingly? Billions are spent every day on wars and corrupt countries and yet your own people starve and are homeless.


It seemed the answer was “Welfare makes people lazy and not prepared to stand up for themselves.” The most prosperous countries I have ever been in like all the Scandinavian ones and also Switzerland, are wonderful places to live because all the people are so well educated, not because of money in their bank accounts; it’s all a matter of outlook on life. How they view and respect others.


What I want to see from any Politian in the entire world is for him to say to the people “This is what I am going to do. This is my one point plan and till I’ve ticked it off my list I shall not waver nor falter from it. Only when I have accomplished it will we move on to my next task.”


It’s all just hopes but one-day just one honest man will come forward and do just that and live up to his ideas and promises.


Susan- Yes, wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air....

Birthday # 54

Yet another birthday will arrive at midnight and my new life is moving along.  My children are doing well, my parents are still here, I have great friends, a job I like, and even with a small amount of serious family drama going on, my new life is wonderful....and I'm so grateful to have been able to make it happen! 

Pashtunwali vs Sharia

I find that I get annoyed when people say things about the Koran,  Islam, or Muslims, that lump all the people of this faith into the "stoning women" category.  Therefore, I thought I would post this so that we could all be better educated.....

From the book Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban, by Jere Van Dyke

"In brief, the main tenet of Pashtunwali is honor. All other tenets -- hospitality, revenge, right of refuge, inheritance, marriage, divorce, and all forms of punishment --- stems from honor. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a Pashtun. A man has no tolerance for anyone who attacks his personal, family, or tribal honor.

Pashtunwali demands blood vengeance, contradicting the Koran, which states that a man must not kill another Muslim. A man must never let an insult go unpunished.  Sharia, or Islamic law, on the other hand, is interested in arbitration, settling a dispute, paying blood money for murder."

This is the really interesting part......

"All men are equal under Pashtunwali, and noble, but if a man looks at a women with the slightest slant, demeaning her honor, it is grounds for murder.  Courtship and romantic love are forbidden. A man and a woman who elope lose respect. The family can retrieve its honor and status only if they kill the elopers. The woman must die first. Nowhere in the world are they safe. Male and female are stoned or buried alive.  Under Sharia, adultery must be witness by four people. Under Pashtunwali, a rumor can end a woman's life."

Pashtunwali is obviously the more fundamentalist brand......the brand that the Tailban practices......

Food for thought....

Happy Birthday, Harry

I have loved Science Friday from the very first moment I stumbled upon it via the Internet almost six years ago....and firmly believe that had I found it years earlier, perhaps my life would have gone in a very different direction.

Because of Science Friday, I got an H1N1 flu shot (and learned to stop calling it "swine flu.)

Because of Science Friday I have become considerably more aware of how my actions may be contributing to climate change and have actively done things to change my behavior in the hope that I might make a small difference.

Because of Science Friday I know more about the Higgs boson, black holes, nanotubes, graphene, and carbon sequestration than I would ever have thought possible.

Because of Science Friday I have bought books like The Zookeeper's Wife, About a Mountain and In Search of Memory.

Because of Science Friday, I have been educated by watching entertaining videos, like how to de-skunk my dog (if I had one), and what kind of car I might want to drive (if I didn't use the subway ever day). I've seen permafrost defrosting, understand the physics of basketball, know what it's like to see through the eyes of an armadillo and how water balloons behave in space. I have been able to not only hear some of the scientists that are interviewed, but also see their desks! How else would that have ever been possible, if not for Science Friday?

Because of Science Friday, I have been able to hear the words of people like Jane Goodall, Eric Kandel, Carl Sagan, and Sylvia Earl, just to name a few of the many, many guests who have been interviewed. I’d like to think that if Einstein were alive, I would have also gotten to hear him too.

Because of Science Friday I know the origins of words like antibiotic, physician and comet.

It’s impossible for me to detail all that I’ve learned over the past five years of being a Science Friday listener. I have been horrified by what is happening to our planet, (and the people who don’t believe it), yet still feel encouraged that there are so many smart people out there, diligently working on ways to effect change.

Science Friday feeds my curiosity on so many different levels.

And, certainly, last, but not least, there’s Ira Flatow……without whom Science Friday would never have existed. With his unlikely sounding radio voice he has helped me and all his other listeners, to better understand the scientific world around us by bringing science into our lives for two hours every week, and on a level that we can understand.

If it were not for Ira, I would not be using the phrase “Scientific evidence is NOT a matter of opinion!”

Yes, I am proud to be one of the many fans of Science Friday……..

Slacking once again

Four Christmas’s ago I didn’t send out Christmas cards and then wrote about the guilt I was feeling about not doing so. (Christmas card slackers - December 21, 2006) Never mind the fact that I was finishing my last semester of a Bachelors Degree, working full time, trying to figure out what was going to happen for Christmas, and getting a new life. Those darn cards were important!

What ended up happening?

Absolutely nothing. The world didn’t end because Susan missed a year of Christmas card sending. My friends and family members who have probably never missed sending theirs (except my mother, who will sometimes send them in January), didn’t shun me the following year and life went along as if my major transgression never happened. By the following year, I had a new job, I was living in Queens, and you can be sure I didn’t miss a second year in a row. That year and every year after I’ve sent New York City Christmas cards, given how much I love living here and wanting to share that joy with everyone else.

By now you must suspect that there’s a reason for this new missive about Christmas cards, right?

Yup, not gonna do it this year either. This will have to suffice as my Christmas greeting to all, along with my begging your forgiveness for being a slacker yet again. I have yet to purchase one present, let alone think about cards and sitting down to write them. It still makes me crazy that we start to see Christmas decorations go up in October and that by December 1st, retailers are making us feel that we’re running drastically behind in our shopping, when there are 24 days left in order to do so!

With the exception of my desk, I’m a relatively organized person. I like having the shopping done, the gifts wrapped and the cards written in a timely manner, yet I know for sure that will not happen this year. I don’t even think the shopping will commence for at least another two weeks. You see........my daughter is getting married and she chose the Christmas holiday season in which to do so. It will be a beautiful wedding and one that we are all looking forward too. However, it has made even thinking about buying the cards and stamps, unthinkable, let alone trying to play shopping catch-up, as well as perhaps baking a few goodies. Therefore, I’m not going to do it. We all survived the last time I didn’t send them, so there’s nothing that would lead me to believe we won’t do so again.

Of course I don’t really feel all that guilty about not sending out the cards. Over the past four years I’ve been learning how not to sweat all this small stuff. There’s no doubt that I still sweat from time to time, but that aspect of my personality has greatly improved. The only real sweating I should be doing, is in the gym, not while sitting in my living room mulling over the ramifications of not writing out Christmas cards.

Many, many years ago, when I was in 4th grade, my mother bought me a book that I saw at a school book fair and that still lingers in my memory to this day. It was Sleigh Bells for Windyfoot and I just loved it. I loved the simplicity of the Christmas depicted in that book. Cutting down the Christmas tree, a sleigh ride (with Windyfoot of course), the smell of burning wood in fireplaces and snow in the air, visiting family members, homemade gifts, and who could forget shooting the bear in the backyard. It was a book that reminded me of Christmas’ spent in Pennsylvania with my maternal grandparents and relatives. Tobogganing down big hills on the golf course across the street, skating on the pond at the bottom of the hill, Christmas cookies, the buck with five point antlers and a doe, standing in the snow in the backyard early one morning, and thankfully, never a bear. (Those have only appeared in recent years. Probably because they’re being squeezed out of their habitat by ever expanding development.) That’s the way I want Christmas to be. I love the feeling and the spirit. I hate the shopping and the guilt about not sending out the Christmas cards!

As in that previous year, things will just have to work themselves out. I’m trying to take the commercialism out of Christmas. This is will be the year when the gifts might be knitted, the goodies homemade and the cards, once again, not written.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Being driven

A few months ago I was at a work “retreat day” that involved some interactive group activities. One of those was to take five post-it notes and write on each one a word that described yourself and a sixth post-it had your name on it. There were four people in each group, so that totaled 24 post-it’s. Each group scattered their post-it’s across an area of the wall and then as a group, you worked together to try and figure out which descriptive words matched which person, and you moved those post-it’s under their name. Not all the words made it under the right names though. After that, each of the five groups took turns cruising by the areas where all the other post-it’s were, and rearranged the words based upon what they believe described each individual in the group whose post-it’s were on that section of the wall. Once each group had a turn to rearrange the words, each person went up and put their words under their name and you got to see how people described themselves and how you saw them. It was an interesting exercise and we all got to learn things about our coworkers that we might never have known.

I can’t remember all of my words; however, one of them was “driven.”

Monday and Tuesday nights I went out after work to do what I consider very interesting things. Monday it was “Monday Night Magic” in the West Village with my good friend Mike. Mike and I have been Internet friends for years, first having met on My Space and then moving over to Facebook. We share the same birthday and decided it was time to finally meet. I had a great time....the magic show was wonderful and Mike’s company was as well. Tuesday night I was at the Hayden Planetarium for a show on the Autumn sky. Last week I went to see a documentary at the Museum of Jewish History about Dr. Eric Kandel, where he signed my copy of his book. Now that fall is here, I’m back to looking for things that I really enjoy doing and I’m doing them.

So, back to the word “driven.” I was rushing out the door from work tonight to go to another one of my geek events when my boss happened by. As I was explaining I was having a busy week “after work wise,” she commented that when she originally saw that I had described myself as driven, she didn’t really see me that way....but given my interests and my focus on pursuing them, maybe I was......driven.

I've been thinking about describing myself as "driven." I think when people hear that word, they think more along the lines of "career driven." In my case that is not the kind of driven I am. What I am, is driven to have the kind of life I want. Career wise, I ended up where I am by accident. I wasn't aiming to ever be an administrator and loved being a case manager.....but, being a case manager was not going to allow me to have the sort of life I feel compelled to have...so, here I am. I'm happy not being a case manager anymore and love what I'm doing, but most importantly, because it allows me to be able to afford to live in the greatest city in the world and to do all those things that interest me. Maybe "driven" isn't exactly the word I should use now that I think about it....perhaps it's more like "single-minded" (or according to Harry, “laser focused”) in regard to what I want for myself.

Living the new life.....

I've cried through many a birthday on this weblog. Thankfully that has not happened in a few years and it's not going to happen tomorrow! I'm really good with where I am right now.

I love where I live.

I like my job and the people I work with and for.

And, I'm happy and usually content with this new life.

Perhaps it's time to change the name of this blog, since I do believe I'm living the new life.

How very cool!