The first title for this post was, “Turning Politically Pissed Off Energy into Something Positive.” That was the intellectual side of my brain talking. This is really about cleaning up a gross, crusty, makes-you-grimace sort of situation.
It all started when I went to a political fundraiser last week here in Tucson at which the FLOTUS with the mostus, Michelle Obama, spoke and Calexico played. Positions evolve, or at least that is what one of the three sanctioned sound bytes about “the Presidency” from the week since then tells me.
I believe strongly in funding public education so that every child starts out with an equal informational and critical reasoning footing when their basic education is completed. Politics has no place in the classroom. I believe that every person has a right to live with dignity and have their basic physical needs met. America is too great a county to abandon widows and orphans to malnutrition and starvation, to sleeping on the streets in filth, and harboring infectious easily preventable diseases. Those who have come before, whether we are we are talking about my great-grandfather, the EUB preacher, or my father, the small farmer who lobbied for non-corporate, family farmers rights’ with the Farmer’s Union, worked too hard for maintaining and expanding basic human rights in this country in a just and fair manner for me to allow their efforts and ethics to fall by the way side. That is what came from me listening to Michelle Obama in the Leo Rich Auditorium at the Tucson Convention Center last week. Breathe. Focus. Act. Repeat.
The world is so damn complex and I am so tired. But I have to suck it up and get busy again. I don’t want to, I just want to write my book, blog a couple of times a week, and get to know my husband again after 22 years of parenting. I still parent but from 15oo miles away; and it is a very a different experience than what came before. But I have to be political again. We have to become political again. It is sort of like when as a mother you see a runny, crusty nose, and you just have to get a tissue and wipe the said snotty nose as you hold down the offending vessel so as not to allow escape. Snotty noses are the province of mothers not because mothers love snot, but because we care about the kid. Politics must be the province of mothers, not because we like politicians, but because we love democracy.
This is the framework I will be using to be able to do the things I feel I have to do as just a basic part of my civic duty over the course of the next 6 months. I don’t this is much of a stretch as far as reframing goes. It is more like activating the Mom framework that I previously adopted and then applying it to the political season within which we will be living through November 2012.
So who is with me?
Thinking About Isabel and Heartache in Tucson
The anniversaries of births of an historic figure who committed atrocities recently went by. The anniversary of a domestic terrorist event also came and went in the past week. I only wanted to light a candle for the souls of the individuals who perished through these horrible acts by evil people. I did not want to give any recognition to the responsible individuals. I still don’t. I thought this year the events would just pass by. Then a little girl in my hometown disappeared. This is the third day she has been missing. The police are searching everywhere there is any reason to search. Local police, FBI, even the Border Patrol are in on the search. There isn’t much we in the community can do other than focus our energies and love on Isabel Celis and her family. From what I can tell from the local news, her mom is a nurse, her dad is a dental tech of some sort, and there is another child or children in the normal family. Suspicion does not seem to be falling on the normal, hardworking family.
I cannot help but be reminded of another local missing child who simply disappeared. Karen Rosalba Grajeda was around 6 when she disappeared. She was the same age as my daughter. She was playing outside her home when she was abducted. She was never seen or heard from again.
I can remind anyone who happens across this post of things they can do to make their children safer in their own homes. That is really the only thing I can do with the energy inside me that keeps bringing me back to thinking about Isabel.
Large barking dogs are reported to be among the best deterrents to people breaking into your home. Lighting is also very important in discouraging break-ins. But dogs and lighting are primarily discussed in burglary prevention. Child abduction is another matter entirely, and I have not found the studies I hoped to find on what measures are best for keeping your family safe from person on person crime when you are in your own home.
Bars or grills on windows are effective, but also slow down evacuation from a home in case of a fire.
I think this heart-breaking topic of child abduction is one of the most maddening crimes to which a person can think about responding. No one wants the macabre to rule their lives or those of their families. I used to work as the head of a section in a museum that was responsible for security at a museum, and I worked closely with the police who were the primary responders for any problems. We did not have our own security force. Thousands of children came through the museum during the months when school was in session. I had to think about safety and security in a way that many people will never have to think. It can profoundly change your outlook on life.
So what can you do to be a bit safer? Being armed with the facts is one of the best ways to prepare for any situation. Parents.com has a good overview document on child abduction.
No one can say for sure. If someone is stalking you or your child in your home and you do not know about it, which would have to be the case for most parents, how do you find out what you do not know about? To me it seems like risk assessment would be one of the first things to find out about. Extremely rich and powerful people, and celebrities, think about safe-guarding their families from kidnapping, but most people do not consider in home abduction to be a major threat to their families. Child abductions at home are relatively rare.
The things that I initially thought of include:
- Do you have convicted sex offenders and sexual predators living near you? How can you tell? Should you give out your info? State by state listings are available through the FBI website and they maintain the national database that is searchable by the offender’s name. Laws vary from location to location about what type of information is available over the internet regarding sex offenders. For example in Arizona where I live only individuals with higher risk for repeat violations, level 2 and 3 risks, are listed. This site, a free and no info required from searcher other than zip code , criminalcheck.com says that it searches all state files in one search, but I do not know if this is accurate. Blackbook online also has a large number of all sorts of public records that you can search for free. It is organized by jurisdiction, or location. Crooks use it I am sure, you might as well find out all the info that is out there about you.
- Are your windows alarmed, accessible from the exterior of the home?
- Can you hear distressed sounds from a child’s room throughout the house?
- What kind of unsupervised time is there in your family?
- Do you know the names of all the people who have entered your home?
I have spent a large portion of today on the web trying to find out about the state of safety and protection of children in Arizona.
While this may have nothing to do with Isabel, I cannot help but wonder whether a state that actively strikes down protections for women and children, such as Arizona, can ever be a safe place to raise a family. When I looked at results from a search on child trafficking in Arizona I mainly found links to a so-called crisis pregnancy center. I couldn’t trust anything associated with those listings. Even physicians, as of last week or so, can lie to a female patient if it involves the fetus in the woman.
We have to do something! I know I’m jumping all over the place here. I can’t concentrate and I want to do something. Prayer and information doesn’t seem like enough.
Isabel Celis, Earth Day, "Chimpanzee"
There is still no resolution to the little missing girl, Isabel Celis. She is 6. She lives on 12th Street just south of Broadway and just west of Park Mall with her family. That is in Tucson. There is a vigil tonight, but no reason for me to go. I don’t want to be a gawker, and I have no connection, other than a mother’s heart, to this little girl. I am praying for her and the family. I am cursing whoever took her, literally, I want them to suffer long and intensely and I am wishing it upon them.
I wanted to write a Happy Earth Day post, talk about the new airport wireless LAN, and tell you about a movie, but it all seems muted with the abduction of this beautiful little girl. First grade. I can’t get the news pictures out of my head. The family is not going public, and I don’t blame them. The police don’t seem to be focused on them. I think, somehow, that she was abducted by someone.
We went to breakfast for Earth Day at The Blue Willow. I love this place and for Earth Day it seemed like a good match. Although I always order one of three or four variations of the same items, I see reviews that do not like the menu, atmosphere, or gift shop. I love all three. The atmosphere is very granola, not quite hippie, but maybe once-upon-a-time hippie, grab lunch with your girl friends, or take your visiting Mom to breakfast. I always get the avocado, green chili, and jack omelet, raison toast, and beans for breakfast. Lunch is the apple, goat cheese and spiced pecan salad. Dinner varies but I most often opt for salmon. Deserts are great there, though I can’t eat them like I used to. The patio is nice, covered with netting, or a shade screen, or a rain tarp. Mists or heaters when needed. The gift shop is fun. Always something different, funky, cute. It really is a place you can find a gift for someone. We wore our home made tie dye and had a nice time. It is walking distance so that makes it a nice place too.
In the late afternoon we went to see Chimpanzee. It was documentary, kids documentary I am sure it will be called, but then, it is a Disney Nature film. That was just fine for me as I really did not need to see the details of troop on troop attack that left some chimps dead, nor did I need to see what wasn’t shown in the meat hunting expedition when the chimps went hunting for monkey meat. The forest is a jungle and that was not down-played but the actual violence was left on the cutting room floor. The movie is for kids, but I think adults can admire the cinematography (read an interview with the cinematographer here,) the work it took to be able to tell such an intimate story, and miraculous adoption of an orphan chimp by a high status male in the troop. The large screen adds a dimension to the film that is as thrilling as “3D” movies. The time lapse photography is amazing. I am always in awe of Mother Nature. I would expect this film to launch the interest of thousands of kids into photography, ethology, and conservation. Tool use, hunting strategy, learning/teaching, and social interaction; this film really was a great introduction to chimpanzee society, minus the sex and violence.
Oh, this was a “free write” day.
Outrage!
I started another post for my “O” entry for the A to Z April blog challenge. During the time between two medical appointments today I updated the operating system on my desktop computer. I had begun blogging on my iPad but by this evening when I had planned to finish the blog, I shifted from a fun topic to a deadly seriously topic. I am OUTRAGED by two different things that I found out about today.
The first situation actually happened over the weekend. Ted Nugent said,
If you want more of those kinds of evil anti-American people in the Supreme Court, then don’t get involved and let Obama take office again. Because I’ll tell you this right now: if Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year….
But if you can’t go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration I don’t know what you’re made of. If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney we’re done. We’ll be a suburb of Indonesia next year….
Our president, and attorney general, our vice president, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals, they’re criminals. And if you take that adamant ‘we the people’ defiance, remember we’re Americans because we defied the king. We didn’t negotiate and compromise with the king, we defied the emperors. We are patriots, we are bravehearts. We need to ride into that battlefield, and chop their heads off in November.
The second thing happened today. It seems that Republican candidate to fill Gabrielle Giffords House seat in the special election will be Jesse Kelly, the man who ran against Gabby Giffords during her last election run before being shot, and who contributed to the Tucson culture of violence by having target practice to “take out” Giffords during the 2010 race. It was within this cuture of which Jerod Laughner determined that he had to take out Gabby and ended up killing 6 people, including a Judge and a little girl born on 9/11/2001, and wounding 14 others with bullets and an entire community with loss, grief, and shock.
I am outraged by ignorance, a gun culture, a culture of violence and vitriol. This has to stop. We cannot tolerate idiocy that borders on criminal behavior and encourages others to follow a call to assassination and sedition. Where is the outrage by the Right Wing? These sorts of behavior that incite violence are far more outrageous than saying that a rich man’s wife has never had to work outside the home or wonder how she was going to provide for her children.
I am outraged at the lack outrage from the Right.
Thanksgivng Hero
The Tucson community is once again abuzz with news of Gabby Giffords. This time it is good news. While you may not agree with Blue Dog support of everything military as Gabby has tended to do in her political career, she does provide inspiration and shows what determination can do if you have medical and family support to complete a supportive components of a healing triangle.
Today she and her husband Mark served Thanksgiving Dinner on base at Davis Monthan AFB here in Tucson today. Local news coverage of the surprise visit is available at KOLD‘s website. It is worth the watch.
A most important element of her recovery had not occurred to me until I read about what she and her husband Mark’s visit could mean to wounded service persons who are also healing as much as they can from the concussive brain injuries that are routine in this last wave of wars they’ve been fighting. I’m still hoping Gabby will become an active representative in the gun safety movement, but whether she does or not, she will be serving and inspiring one of her most vulnerable constituent populations and doing so from the informed perspective of a fellow brain injury survivor.
How she survived is beyond my level of understanding. That she survived is beyond my understanding. How she manages to do the painstaking rehabilitation work she does, let alone be able to find the strength to make constituent visits like this one to DMAFB is totally beyond my poor understanding.
Why Buying Local Is Better, Usually
If you are a small business operator starting out in a new direction, as I am, there is so much to consider beyond the usual business plan if you are also a political creature, as I am.
When I was a graduate student studying semiotic analysis of cultural systems, my major professor told me there were two kinds of people: lumpers and splitters. There are those who are contextual and inclusive and those who are detail oriented and exclusive. I try to include as much contextual information as possible in my decision making and I can get bogged down in details, but usually I get wrapped up in threads or linked connections, so I think of myself as a lumper.
So today I am writing about the some of the significant, but often under-valued, contexts within which local business takes place.
We are careening into shopping season. This Friday is called Black Friday. While some say the term relates to Philadelphia and traffic snarls noted on this day in the 1960s, I am talking about its meaning as a day when stores go into the black, as in show a profit. There is some truth to this meaning especially in difficult economic times. Holiday shopping can make or break businesses. It is also promotes buying a bunch of plastic, foreign-made items that no one really needs.
One approach to countering this cult of consumerist crap buying is Buy Nothing Day. Observance of this day is counter to the concept of Black Friday. I don’t go for the stuck in traffic purchase frenzy of flaring frustrations and tempers that is this the day after Thanksgiving. So this year I plan to have this Friday be a Walk to a Neighborhood Store or Buy Local Day. This is where I am a lumper and not a splitter. I am combining the reality of this Friday being a day off from work for most folks when Christmas shopping can be done with the reality that we as patriotic Americans and concerned local community members in that I will NOT go to Target, WalMart, or any Big Box Stores and only go to locally owned businesses. This is a compromise as I’m not saying don’t go to local franchises, and I’m just saying buy local, don’t buy junk, and if possible shop in your neighborhood… and maybe bake something, visit a neighbor, or play a board game with your family.