The Reverend Will Clegg told me to go to Google and type in "Weapons of mass destruction" and click the Feeling Lucky button and I would find something interesting. It is true. You can just click here: Will's Link
Pat Kaplela retired 4/30/04. Her workgroup honored her with a tea party to celebrate and commemorate the occassion. Pat is quiet and was not looking forward to the big hoopla, but I think she enjoyed the festivities after all.
I worked with Pat for six months in 2000 and enjoyed her calm, professional manner, her humor and her generous caring and kindness. She will be missed.
Click on her picture (above) for party photos and click HERE to see goofy pictures from fall 2001.
For is it not true that human progress is but a mighty growing pattern woven together by the tenuous single threads united in a common effort?- Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek)
So, Saturday May 1st the girls went out... Carol, Barbara, Robie and I met for dinner and a play- what fun!
I think we all enjoyed the play quite a bit; it was a solo show called "Good Body", written and played by Eve Ensler (who also did "The Vagina Monologues"). It was entertaining, touching and thought provoking. Yes, it was good. A nice night out with the girls.
The woman's body image (left) links to a Seattle Rep Theatre site with information about the play and the picture of my three friends (right) links to a Seattle Times article about the play.
"There she was: dejected, desperate, and stoned. Everything I could have hoped for in a woman."- Louis DePalma, Robert De Niro (Taxi)
Jay and I were talking about cars, about how the Oldsmobile has now gone out of production and the general decline of US autos- especially how the US no longer makes car engines... what? Well, yes, car engines are now made in Eastern Europe... what? Yes, that's what the dash light says- look at yours next time you start the engine, it lets you know where it is from: "Check Engine".
"People want economy and they will pay any price to get it."- Lee Iacocca
This is a picture of an old, old postcard of the railroad station for my home town of Eaton Rapids, Michigan. I am flying to Eaton Rapids ("The Only Eaton Rapids on Earth") very early Saturday and will be with my mom for Mother's Day- the first time since 1983- so it will be quite nice. If I am lucky I will also get to see Reverend Will, although I made arrangements just a couple of weeks ago so he had little notice for a weekend that is busy for him. I will also get to see my dad, sister, brother and a variety of other friends and family not seen since my last visit there November 2002 or even longer ago. My folks came out here last June, with my sister too, to see Carrie graduate from college, so I did get to see them last year. I am looking forward to the visit and will report back here... have a good weekend everyone.
The lives of children are
Dangerous to their parents
With fire, water, air,
And other accidents;
And some, for a child's sake,
Anticipating doom,
Empty the world to make
The world safe as a room.
- Louis Simpson
I returned from a good trip to Michigan late last night, pictures and comments will follow shortly. In the meantime I wanted to put in something about the horrors currently in our world...
Adding to my recent theme of pages from the past:
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From February 2003:
Carol sent me this picture in a fowarded e-mail with a message about it making one (mostly females) feel safe. I am not sure if safety is what I feel when looking at nice, young male bodies...
Besides, feelings of safety and the military have not been related thoughts to me most of my life. The easiest way to vanquish an enemy is to make him your friend, or at least cohort. We need to do what the radical religious element in the middle east hates the most- eliminate trade barriers, open up their countries and destroy their youth by exposing them or immersing them in western commercialism. Doing what we do best- destroying other cultures, is this time the way to go...
Honor in war rarely, if ever, exists.
There is too much anger in Bush's face, and anger is not a primary emotion- it is always about something else.
Peace.
Everything can be taken from a man but...the last of human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.- Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997), Psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor
We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.- Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), Mythology expert and writer
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From March 2003:
It was a scary day today, and a refrain from a song kept drifiting into my head as I listened to the President speak this evening:
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun- from the song Levon, written by Elton John/Bernie Taupin
We are here now, at a place I had hoped we would not make it to. I don't like it; it does not feel good to me. I hope my misgivings are misplaced, I hope today's actions lead to a safer world.
It is often easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.- Adlai Stevenson
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A couple had two little boys ages 8 and 10, who were excessively mischievous. They were always getting into trouble and their parents knew that if any mischief occurred in their town, their sons would get the blame.
The boys' mother heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The clergyman agreed, and asked to see them individually. The mother sent in her 8-year-old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the clergyman in the afternoon.
The clergyman, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, "Where is God?"
The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there with his mouth hanging open. The clergyman repeated the question. "Where is God?" Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. So the clergyman raised his voice some more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed, "Where is God!?"
The boy screamed and bolted from the room. He ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "What happened?"
The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We are in big trouble this time! God is missing and they think we did it!"
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Hooray!! Equal time for our fighting men... for patriotism!
And so, a quote from Rudyard Kipling, written a hundred years ago. It was brought to my attention 9/11/01 by my friend Margaret- I put it on my very first page.
Rudyard wrote about English forces doing battle a century ago in Afghanistan:
That was not demoralizing to [them]... who have not European nerves... the foe... wholly mad with religious fanaticism... the only way of dealing with [them]... is by volleys at long ranges; because a man who means to die, who desires to die, who will gain heaven by dying, must, in nine cases out of ten, kill a man who has a lingering prejudice in favour of life.- The Drums of the Fore and Aft
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"Why of course the people don't want war. . . . That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."- Hermann Goering, Nazi officer, during his Nuremberg war crimes trial
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From April 2003:
The picture at left came to me as an email. I guess it is supposed to be patriotic, thumbing our American nose at the French who dared to say that they thought we were too rash in wanting to invade Iraq because we had yet to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and intended to use them against us- remember? the "pre-emptive attack" rationale.
But we went ahead anyway, and thankfully the war has gone pretty well for us and so far only about 101 Americans have died. Even as we invaded Iraq Saddam did not use those weapons of mass destruction against us- they are a hard people to figure out. We have found one stash of something that might be chemical weapons and we are testing and scrutinizing it to see if it is. Funny how the service men supposedly have instruments to detect chemical and biological weapons with them so that they can don protective garments if need be, and yet they cannot tell for sure if items they encounter are actually those types of weapons- either we are outfitting our service men with inadequate gauges or we need time to doctor up the evidence.
It is good that Saddam's regime is toppled, he was a brutal dictator and that was never in question. Is the US justified in its attack of Iraq should no weapons of mass destruction be discovered? If no weapons are found then just what were Bush and Powell talking about? Are they delusional? If not, are their motivations other than what they present? Oh no! How irreverent of me, to question their motives when their actions have saved the whole Iraqi nation for democracy... And which peoples brutalized by dictators are we going to save next? Cuba? Maybe some other countries in our own back yard? Not likely. We are, after all, capitalists. Why not just call a spade a spade? "Show me the money". For better, or for worse, our country appears to be capitalists before they are democratists (is that a word?). C'est la vie. Well, no, it is not "the life", it is just how it is here, in the US, where pretending we are pure and good is really just the way it is.
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Back to the present:
When I think of God, I think of how a kind touch feels, or how a parent's eyes look when they gaze upon their child, or that something that is between two people who love each other, or how it feels to plant seeds in the soil and to pick flowers, or to give the next spot in line to someone who needs it more...
I do not feel God in anything that is happening in the Middle East. Maybe the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims have all forgotten something; maybe they have all forgotten the same thing. It seems like the world is never safe when someone says they know what is best for everyone else and invokes the name of God to make it so. The United States has no real claim to God's heart- that is a fantasy. God created the world for us all.
I remember hearing about the Garden of Eden as a child and wondering if the world itself was the Garden, wondering if we had been given a place to live that contained everything we need. It seemed like we were so busy looking for more, so busy being right, so busy... I wondered if we would eventually find our way, and find ourselves back where we started.
I still wonder if the story is not a story, not a parable, but just talks about what is.
There has to be another way to where it is that we think we want to go.
Clicking on the lotus picture takes you to a map borrowed from The Seattle Times.
I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.- Albert Camus
We have tickets for the Indigo Girls concert on the pier in Seattle in July. Their newest album is good- "All That We Let In". These are part of the lyrics to one of the songs written by Amy Ray:
Perfect World
We get to be a ripple on the water.
We get to be a rock that's thrown.
We get to be a boy on the bridge
Standing over the reservoir.
See the water lap along the shoreline,
The buried forest of a man made lake.
Cemeteries are laying underneath it,
Your heart like a dam when it breaks.
We are floating, we are swimming,
And in this moment we are forgetting
What it costs, what it takes
For one perfect world,
When we look the other way...
It's one perfect world.
When we look the other way
It's one perfect world.
If you can't see beyond the myth of isolation
And the miracle of daybreak doesn't move you anymore;
Connect the points and set the constellations,
As the night comes down on the resevoir,
We are swimming, we are floating
And in this moment we are beholden to
What it cost, to what it takes
For one perfect world.
Can we learn to live another way?
It's one perfect world.
Can we learn to live another way?
It's one perfect world.
The picture of the Florence, Italy statue links to the Indigo Girls site.
Mary Bradley is my work partner in boarding home licensing- her birthday is Saturday May 15th...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY!!!
Mary likes to laugh and she likes to tell stories- she is a good team mate. I hope her next year is one of her best.
Happy Birthday Mary
"I would ask you to remember only this one thing... the stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away when they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memories. This is how people care for themselves."- Barry Lopez
Though he has watched a decent age pass by, A man will sometimes still desire the world.- Sophocles, from a play he wrote at the age of 89
I have the pictures taken in Michigan ready... click on the picture at right (Eaton Rapids VFW Home, 1930) to view them.
The picture at left is from 1915; a water fountain at the ER woolen mills.
"As for our losses and gains, we have seen how often they are inextricably mixed. There is plenty we have to give up in order to grow. For we cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go."- Judith Viorst, last paragraph from Necessary Losses
One last Pat Kapela retirement photo taken by Alma on her cell phone...
"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."- Catherine
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
If the end of life does not bring surprise, then I will be surprised.
posted by Craig 11:05 AM
Life is for the living. I keep hearing this in my mind.
If life does not continue to bring surprises, then I will be surprised.
THE CASE OF THE ELECTRIC MARTIAN DUST DEVILS
Scientists have found clues that dust devils on Mars might have high-voltage electric fields, based on observations of their terrestrial counterpart...
NASA and university researchers discovered that dust devils on Earth have unexpectedly large electric fields, in excess of 4,000 volts
Click on the picture to go to the story.
It finally rained last night- it was wonderful. It has been so dry here, with no rain to speak of forever. We had only a quarter inch of rain for all of April and have been watering the flowers and veggies for a while now...
The rain toppled most of the poppies, but I had taken some pictures an evening earlier this week. If you are interested you can click on the picture at left of Jay to see flowers around our little house and a couple interesting shots of Jay.
:)
"I seem to be a verb."- R. Buckminster Fuller
The hyena picture at left links to an interesting site that belongs to a professor at Georgetown University. Cathy Ball has collected animal sounds that all of us in the world hear the same but represent in our many languages quite differently...
Life is incredibly interesting- what a strange trip we are on.
"All life is an experiment."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Language and cultures are interesting...
Clicking on both/either picture will take you to a commercial English site.
"[S]He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met."- Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)
The WWII Memorial was dedicated today, May 29th. It is an acknowledgement that many have said is overdue- this is true. The valor and courage have been acknowledged, as well as the pain and loss. The loss is still palpable. My parents were growing up then, and they remember. I have had many clients who fought in that war and I have had many clients who remained home during that war; for both the pain and loss is still accessible and for some the loss is so palpable that all these decades later they still cannot tolerate it being spoken of...
War is awful, war is obscene. Our soldiers are doing what they believe is right and they are risking the ultimate sacrifice. Those that are lucky enough to return home will bear scars inside of themselves; for some of them the emotional and psychological scars will heal so poorly that they will rip open repeatedly during their lifetime. The cost is dear.
Criticism of war is separate from, and does not imply criticism of, soldiers. War is hell. One would think that risking entering hell is not a decision to be made lightly by "leaders". Maybe if "leaders" had to directly experience the war they so fervently seek, directly experience the pain and loss, directly experience the scars and pain that even time cannot entirely assuage, and have to send their own sons and daughters in harm's way, maybe then... life is filled with so many difficult decisions, and this is one.
"To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail."- Abraham Maslow
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA COBB!!!
Today, May 29th, is also my sister Linda's birthday- I hope she has a good day and a wonderful year.
Linda has worked for many years managing an activity program for developmentally disabled adults and helps to organize them for participating in the Special Olympics. I know that they are very thankful for her help and presence.
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
And now, a much-needed joke, an outlet for all of your pent-up stuff...
HOWEVER, you are forewarned that it is sexual in nature so do not click on the picture of the outlet (at left) if you think you might be offended-
Thank You!!
"Some things are better than sex, and some things are worse, but there's nothing exactly like it."- W. C. Fields
All pictures posted on my pages link to somewhere in the cyberworld... try clicking on each of them.
E-mail comments to: thecindyj@hotmail.com or click MAIL TO
Click on our mailbox to view comments (after I've added them).
Thanks Grappler!
Music: Click on the Lips Page Created May 2004
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