Happy Anniversary!

Reverse-Engineering Online Dating

NOT that I would ever do this, but it was funny...

"Without hope you have no trust in anything or anyone."

This Op-Ed in the LA Times is well worth the read. This particularly stuck me: "...nearly 50% of all children who enter county foster care are 5 or younger."

Nearly 50 percent. Are 5 or younger.

I was talking to some coworkers recently about adoption and specifically, about adopting an older child out of foster care.

One coworker, married, has 2 beautiful young children, and her baby boy just turned 1 year old. She developed diabetes during the last month of her pregnancy. She was explaining how she had been telling her husband that she did not want to put her body through that again. She said if they want another child, they will adopt, but only a baby or toddler. She thinks that after that the children have been too affected, will be too hard to fit into the family.

The other coworker is still very young, still single. I think she basically agreed with the married lady, but also she was telling her that she understood my position, that the older kids need help, too. (I don't believe that it's too late to help them, too late to make a difference.)

But now I read this, I am armed for the next time it comes up: Nearly 50 percent. Are 5 or younger. They are not too old, to damaged already to become part of your family.

But me, I'll still want to help an older child.

Boy Makes Good Using His Imagination

Tolerance is not a Weakness

This is one of the ads going up in the DC area to try to raise people's awareness of the meaning of Jihad to moderate Muslims. "Religious struggle" and "holy war" are not equivalent ideals. I like this one...

...but I'm not sure most people will get it. What it's saying is that there is a stereotype that a woman wearing a hijab is living under oppression, but that really she is not being weak, she is being modest, and it's something she chooses to do in order to be more virtuous, to become a better person. To me, it's a bit like a woman who chooses for religious reasons to shave her head or wear it very close-cut (like a Buddhist nun). The idea is to force people to see the person, not her adornments. It is also an outward sign of submission to God. I just kinda wish the ad had said "Modestry is a strength", instead of "Modestry is not a weakness."

This commentator explains it well, I think, although I simultaneously get an Ick! feeling from her knee-jerk soul-searcing about how it could somehow be her fault that a sleazy ignorant guy on the bus thought it was OK to quiz her about whether she's available while she's wearing a hijab.

No, sweetie, it is not your fault that sleazy ignorant guys are legion.

Hey! Legion of Sleazy Ignorant Guys: a woman wearing a hijab is signalling that she is asserting her right to be viewed in a non-sexual way, so NO, she does not want to talk to you about dating or how pretty you think she is.

(cheez whiz!)

I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at the viewpoints of some young women who wear the hijab.

This young lady is a convert to Islam. In Texas. From her perspective it has partly cost her her career. I think she explains the concept of jihad well, that it is a test of her faith. As a convert to Islam, she is also grappling with the change in her identity, both internally and as viewed by the community in Dallas, Texas. For her, the whole issue is more complicated than just signalling that she claims her right to be seen as a person rather than a sexual object. There are employment issues, prejudices, and what seems to go the deepest for her, her example to younger girls. The video is long-ish at 13 minutes, but I think well worth the watch for an honest look at someone struggling with these forces.


This lady in England addresses what she sees as the common misunderstandings about hijab:


Another set of women discussing misunderstandings about wearing the hijab:

The Stakes: Domestic Violence from the Inside

"New Narratives to Reclaim...Identity"

Sue Austin on TED:

Listen! Change is in the wind...

"Trust yourself, and believe."


His first TED talk:

Gratitude

Realization (this guy has an amazing story):


Dance:


Vision:

Rachael! Dancing! 2 of Leamur's fav things!

Rachael with the DWTS Guru, Tony Dovolani:


With Paula Deen!


With Emmitt Smith!


And cooking (sort of, it's guac) with John Salley!

"Dont give up on the poor kids, because you never know what's going to happen."

Bill Strickland tells an inspiring story -- with Herbie Hancock's accompaniment -- of how he's paid it forward, beautifully:


He is up to 5 of these centers now.

"Margaret Thatcher was my mother."

"It's kind of easy to patronize the past to forgo our responsibilities in the present."

The Antidote to Suck

So, when I see things like that poor guy yesterday who got his iStuff & everything else hacked, erased, etc., I think it's natural enough to think "aw, $4!+, people suck", but nobody wants to stay in that headspace, so fortunately, there's an antidote, brought to us by failarmy:

(Aw, man, *I* wanna play tennis with lightsabers!)

And others:



People can suck, be fearless, be awesome. It's a choice.

For Blanka, who loves Truth. And Movies, sometimes.

Background: The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was written in 1962 by Ken Kesey. The (classic) film, released in 1975, was directed by Milos Forman, who had immigrated from still-communist Czechoslovakia in 1968. (He also directed Amadeus, which was also great.)

Personal background: I was very moved during the Velvet Revolution by watching days of huge crowds gathered peacefully on the streets of Prague. This was about 6 months after I (finally) graduated from college and about a month after I had moved into my apartment on St. Paul Street, across from Penn Station, a couple blocks south of North Avenue in Baltimore. (So, not the best neighborhood, you couldn't park on the street without getting your window busted & my landlady put bars on the building's windows shortly after I moved in, but I was young and it was just me & a cocker spaniel and a cat, so what did I care?) Day after day on the news, I saw so many people staying so sane, and there were stories of the PA equipment being used to locate parents of misplaced children and so forth. I recall being very impressed that so many people had gathered so peacefully, and I even remember thinking that if that many people gathered in Los Angeles (just pulling an American city out of the air), it would be a riot. (The L.A. Riots happened 3 years later in 1992, around the time of what the BBC calls here "The Velvet Divorce".)

Finally, the post itself: This talented film director of classic films, Milos Forman, has pointed out in the New York Times that all of the name-calling of President Obama's platform and accomplishments as "Socialism" isn't just the ho-hum hyperbole we expect and ignore in an election year. It isn't just inaccurate. It is a profound "misunderestimation" (to throw out a classic Bush-ism) of world history, and ignoring such nonsense just because we know it's nonsense (and assume everyone else does) isn't right.

Thank you, Mr. Forman, for speaking up. We needed to hear that from an authentic voice such as yours.