Climate Change: Blog Action Day 2009

Today, many people from around the world are participating in various actions to promote awareness of the effects of global warning and what can be done about it. The effects are already taking place, and the only way to stop these changes from happening is to raise people’s awareness, urge them to change their own habits that affect the environment (aka leaving “carbon footprints”), and urge them to notify their governments that they want them to effect changes as well. Here is a link to a list of 100 effects of global warming: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/09/climate_100.html

Change.org has initiated a Blog Action Day event for today in which bloggers everywhere are calling their readers attention to global warming issues:  http://www.blogactionday.org/

This movement is most often referred to as the “green” movement, and there are several books available that call readers’ attention to ways they affect their environment and provide personal solutions. These solutions include using less gas by carpooling or walking or using public transportation, using less electricity, buying cloth grocery bags that can be reused (thus reducing their use of nonbiodegradable plastic bags), using fewer chemical products (such as dishwashing liquids) in home-care maintenance, and many more.

Looking at maps that show where carbon pollution is occurring at the highest rates reveals that we United States citizens MUST take steps to change our habits. And we must start doing that TODAY.

AIDS Leadership Now–a poem

I have written a poem for an art exhibition at my church, AIDS NOW: LEADERSHIP NOW. I would appreciate any comments. 

AIDS LEADERSHIP NOW!

Why can’t they hear

The universal wailing

Rising from the depths

Of a soul, from the empty heart

Of a lover, a partner

Of a husband, a wife

Of a mother, a father

Of a sister, a brother

Of a daughter, a son

Of kin and friends

For ONE who has died of AIDS

ONE beloved, ONE of their own

Stolen by the heartless Evil

That is called AIDS?

 

Multiply that by thousands

In every continent in our world

The deafening tumult

Of broken hearts

 

Where is their comfort?

When will the stigma cease?

When will they get social justice

To make meaning of their grief?

 

Where is the leadership

To fund AIDS education?

Why has a cure for AIDS

Evaded scientists for so long?

 

If there is blame and shame

For this terrible disease

It belongs to the laboratories

Where scant efforts die

 

It belongs to the bureaucracy

And pharmaceutical companies

Where the aim is to make money

Not to discover a cure for AIDS

 

Where is the leadership

To monitor their actions?

How is donated money spent?

Why is no accounting required?

 

Where is the leadership

That is so desperately needed?

Can’t they hear the pleading in

That deafening universal wail?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I’m not a good blogger

I’ll get better at this, I promise! I’m on Facebook, where I write short notes about what I’m doing and read short notes about what my friends are doing, but this is different. I guess maybe if I imagine that  anyone who might read this is a friend of mine, I can do it.

 

So, friend, I’ll start by telling you about my present preoccupation. My mother is dying of uterine cancer, and of course it is hard on me and the rest of my family. My mom is 87, and my dad is 92, so I’ve been preparing myself for their passing for some time now, but to watch my mom in pain is difficult. My mom’s fortitude is amazing. She is not giving up easily. Both she and my dad, as well as my two sisters apparently, are people who see only what they want to see. That was great when I was a teenager—I got away with a lot! But now, I feel alone and too responsible. My sister who lives closest to mom and dad takes them to their doctor appointments, etc., but all three of them neglect mentioning important symptoms and forget the doctor’s instructions, so I can’t find out anything, and I am so frustrated. My mom has hospice care, which is a real blessing. She gets to stay in her home and with her husband of 68 years. Although it is difficult for me to be left out of the loop, I am having to trust that she is getting all of the care she needs from them.

 

World AIDS Day just passed (1 Dec.), which also makes me remember dear friends who died of AIDS. The next art exhibition that we’re planning to open at my church in January is entitled AIDS Now: Leadership Now. Leadership has been the theme for World AIDS Day for the last three years, and we want to express the need for leadership in the AIDS crisis in our art. The AIDS crisis is still growing globally, in the United States as well as in the more publicized countries: India and Africa. I read an article a few days ago that revealed that the latest group showing increases in HIV/AIDS is the elderly. However, HIV was detected in a large number of students in a high school here in St. Louis. The media excitedly spread the news at once, then suddenly went silent. It’s as if someone influential told them to shut up about it, probably because too many parents were becoming alarmed. How stupid is that? Clearly there is a great need for leadership in keeping the HIV/AIDS problem in the forefront in the media and in insisting on ongoing search for remedies.

These two diseases, cancer and AIDS, are Evil. They are the worst public enemies (besides the Bush Administration) in the world. They are the terrorists that should receive the most attention.

 

I won’t apologize for posting a doom-and-gloom message today, because these issues are very real and need at least as much attention as global warming, obesity in the United States, hurricanes and tsunamis, earthquakes. and the torture of suspected terrorists—all of which are real enemies of the people as well.

I’m Ba-a-ack!

I have been neglecting my blog lately, but I’m back. I had too many interferences: reading tons of e-mails, writing letters, and just being totally passionate about the elections (and the results made my efforts worthwhile!); I did some volunteer work for the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (E4GR), which focusses on fulfilling the MDGs, from which I got much satisfaction but also proof that my disabilities are very real—I couldn’t move for two days afterwards; my son moved in with me—temporarily I hope—which robbed me of some of my space. Regarding the latter, I lost my space where I ate breakfast and read poetry every morning. I also do my longhand writing in that space. I’m still trying to adjust and to get back to my regular schedule. Another interference was illness—I spent several days in bed nursing myself back to health. I’m glad to be back here!

 

I finished Voodoo Dreams by Jewell Parker Rhodes. I could barely tear myself away from it toward the end of the book. I was in one of those states when you are anxiously wanting to know the ending but you are also not wanting the book to end. I recommend reading this book. Although I have resolved to use the word “love” as a verb sparingly and thoughtfully, I must say that I loved this book! Luckily, Rhodes has more recently written two books of a trilogy that moves the voodoo scenario from the early 19^th century to the 21^st century: Voodoo Season and Yellow Moon. (I met the author when she visited my favorite local independent book store, Left Bank Books, to read from and sign Yellow Moon.) I’ve started Voodoo Season.

 

Also, I have taken a break from Poet’s Choice, my recent breakfast poetry book, to read from Jane Kenyon’s Collected Poems (Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2005). My “boss” for the volunteer work I did recently recommended Jane Kenyon to me. I’m glad she did!

 

I do that occasionally—take a break from Poet’s Choice. The last time I did, I read Grace Paley’s last poems in Fidelity (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), which were hauntingly beautiful. I have since ordered her collected short stories. I have read some her works before; I remember reading them in Women’s Studies courses in college.

 

Perhaps I have indeed recovered from the presidential election and am now getting back to “normal.”

 

protest poetry

Recently I wrote about what I am reading. I didn’t I mention that my favorite poetry is protest poetry. My favorite poet is Lawrence Ferlinghetti. This morning I read a really good poem (part of a poem, actually) of this genre in Poet’s Choice by Edward Hirsch (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006). It is a section of a poem by Saadi Youssef, “America, America,” from Without an Alphabet, Without a Face (translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa, Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2002). Hirsch writes (p. 138) that Youssef wrote the poem “in 1995 in direct response to the hardship and suffering faced by the Iraqis under sanctions instigated by the United States.” I share it here:

 

 

  I too love jeans and jazz and Treasure Island

  and John Silver’s parrot and the balconies of New Orleans.

  I love Mark Twain and the Mississippi steamboats and Abraham

       Lincoln’s dogs.

  I love the fields of wheat and corn and the smell of Virginia

       tobacco.

  But I am not American.

  Is that enough for the Phantom pilot to turn me back to the Stone

       Age?

  I need neither oil nor America herself, neither the elephant nor the

       donkey.

  Leave me, pilot, leave my house roofed with palm fronds and this

       wooden bridge.

  I need neither your Golden Gate nor your skyscrapers.

  I need the village, not New York.

  Why did you come to me from your Nevada desert, soldier armed

       to the teeth?

  Why did you come all the way to distant Basra, where fish used to

       swim by our doorsteps?

  Pigs do not forage here.

  I have only these water buffaloes lazily chewing on water lilies.

  Leave me alone, soldier.

  Leave me my floating cane hut and my fishing spear.

  Leave me my migrating birds and the green plumes.

  Take your roaring iron birds and your Tomahawk missles. I am

       not your foe.

  I am the one who wades up to the knees in rice paddies.

  Leave me to my curse.

  I do not need your day of doom.

 

 

Books I’m Currently Reading

I have been busy online this week writing letters to my representive and senators about the bailout and reading many articles about this hot issue. But I am trying to get some other reading in as well. I’ll share my reading “schedule” here as well as what I am currently reading.

I like to say I have poetry for breakfast, because I’ve been doing that for awhile now. Right now I am reading Edward Hirsch’s Poet’s Choice while eating my oatmeal every morning. This is a great book for finding out about many good poets. Hirsch gives a history about a poet then gives at least one sample poem written by that poet. Occasionally instead of writing about one poet, he writes about an age or a topic, giving samples of poets who have written in that period or about that topic. The first chapter in the book, for example, is “Nightingales.” (That one inspired me to try to find out just what a nightingale’s song sounds like. Unfortunately, all I could find out was that there are no nightingales in the U.S.–they are in England.) Another example of a topic is “Women and War.” I read poetry very slowly, usually just one or maybe two poems for breakfast. I like to retain the taste of the poem I’ve read for awhile.

Lately I’ve added another breakfast item that I’ll call meditation. Currently I’m reading Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing, edited by Robert Inchausti. I have been attending a Thomas Merton Group at my church that uses a series of eight booklets under the title bridges to contemplative living with thomas merton. The title desribes the purpose of the group. I wanted to add to that reading of Thomas Moore. I’m calling the reading of Thomas Moore in the morning ”meditation” because it helps start my day in a higher frame of mind. It is said that a good breakfast is necessary to sustain your body throughout your morning activities; poetry and meditation for breakfast sustains my mind and spirit. I really should add them to my lunches and dinners as well.

At bedtime, I am currently reading Voodoo Dreams by Jewell Parker Rhodes. OK, it is a complete opposite type of reading than I do in the morning, but I’m loving this book. I met the author at a booksigning event at Left Bank Books (my favorite local independent bookstore), and we have developed an e-mail relationship since then. Anyway, as the title suggests, it is about a real-life Voodoo Queen in New Orleans in the mid-1880s. It is a historical fiction drawn from the pages of a journal kept by a white man who was quite obsessed with the beauty of the woman he met one time before she became the Voodoo Queen. I am about two-thirds of the way through the book and the two have just bumped into each other for the second time. Their relationship is the “heartbeat” of the novel in creating its underlying tension. The snippets from the man’s journal that head most of the chapters keeps the tension alive. My secret self loves dark subjects like this as well as mysteries. I can move through these types of books quickly.

In between dawn and dusk I am reading David Sirota’s The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. I met David at LBB too, when he gave a reading of this book a few months ago. He has since become my favorite political writer (his books have made the New York Times Bestseller List) AND progressive activist. He’s on the board of Campaign for America’s Future (aka Our Future). He’s on TV a lot, usually counterpointing some Republican, and he recently joined Michael Moore on Meet the Bloggers on the internet. I can’t remember if they shared time with a counterpointer or if the moderator just asked significant probing questions, but it was good. Anyway, it is taking me a long time to read his book partly because I read articles by him almost daily on the internet and partly because I don’t have a set time to read this book–it’s a catch-as-catch-can situation.

Finally, my last daily “reading” is done while I’m watching TV–usually these art books and magazines are really picture books that don’t really require much reading. I think I do this reading while “watching” TV because I don’t want to waste my time by watching TV. However there are a couple of weekly TV series I don’t want to miss, and I love the old movies on cable TV. Anyway, the art book I’m reading now is Stefan Bollmann’s Women Who Read Are Dangerous. Despite this sexist belief, a lot of artists from the middle ages to the present time have painted or drawn sketches of women in the act of reading. The author gives a historical blurb about each painting, but this is definitely a lovely picture book.

And that’s the end of this topic!

Rating the Debates

I got involved in rating the debates through Free Press, which meant I had to watch them tonight. Overall, I was disappointed that essentially only two topics were offered for debate by Jim Lehrer, whom I respect greatly as a journalist. Although he asked eight questions, all of them were about the current financial crisis in the U.S. or wars (in Iraq, in Afghanistan, potentially with Pakistan and Iran, and the Russia/Georgia conflict). Nothing new was revealed about either candidate. The purpose of the rating is to evaluate the media coverage, demanding the moderators to ask relevant questions. Lehrer passed that test, in my opinion, but there are too many questions left unanswered about foreign policy. As a member of ONE, I wrote a letter to Lehrer last week, asking him to ask the candidates to address at least one question about the issue of global poverty. He didn’t, and they didn’t offer any ideas on their own (although they did manage to talk about health care, jobs, education, alternative energy sources/off-shore drilling and other topics, during their discussion on the financial crisis). McCain’s favorite phrase of the night was “Obama doesn’t get it” about any topic. Obviously his strategy is quite simple: he goes way back (he even quoted Eisenhower) and has much more experience. And he does–in a corrupt government.

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals agreed to in 2000 by 189 heads of state and government — including the United States — from around the world that address the deepest material brokenness in the world today. Click here for the text of the UN Millennium Declaration.  Poverty the likes of which we just don’t see within the United States. Poverty like

*1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day.

*110 million children who aren’t allowed even a full course of primary education 

*Half a million women a year dying of complications from childbirth and pregnancy.

*A child under 5 dying every three seconds from preventable, treatable causes

*8,000 people (more than died in the September 11 attacks) dying each day of HIV/AIDS

and much, much more.

These are the 8 Millennium Development Goals:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger .
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Create a global partnership for development with targets for aid, trade and debt relief.