In my case, my Achilles heel was my ankles which were showing at all times.

In the 1970s, they simply didn’t make trousers for people who were 6’5” tall with a 37” inside leg. So I could never wear jeans or something [...]]]> Do you ever get embarrassed thinking about what you used to do?

In my case, my Achilles heel was my ankles which were showing at all times.

In the 1970s, they simply didn’t make trousers for people who were 6’5” tall with a 37” inside leg. So I could never wear jeans or something appropriate to my age. It is still tricky, in fact, to this day to find any trousers to fit me in standard shops.

My options were to wear shorts, to lower the waist of my trousers down to around the top of my thighs – this became dead trendy later, but was definitely not so at the time, especially as it tended to make my trousers split at the crutch – or to order some tailor-made monstrosities fashioned (if that is the word, which it isn’t) almost invariably from curtain material.

I looked like a golfer.

Come to think of it, golf trousers are conspicuous by their absence from KJ Rigby’s ‘Little Guide to Unhip’, as are those multi-coloured condom suits that serious cyclists wear.

My shoes were embarrassingly unhip too. There was a dearth of UK size 13 shoes then too as all shoe sizes were based on a census taken in 1962 when adults were apparently considerably smaller than we became. My only realistic option was to resort to those flappy shoes clowns wear as they tour the big top.

Thank God for shades to hide my face and to save me from utter humiliation.

Reading through this guide to the unhip, I was doing really rather well – no elasticated trousers, no Gilbert O’Sullivan records, no store loyalty cards – until I discovered that Kate had nailed me for being called ‘Tim’ and having an Oxford accent. Nobody recovers from that pair of disgraces.

So how does she catch you out?

If you want to find out, try here: http://www.freado.com/book/7424/little-guide-to-unhip, or here: http://www.nightpublishing.com/id31.html

(see reviews below the sign)

Gerald Hansen, author of ‘An Embarrassment of Riches’: What an excellent, excellent idea, and written with such hilarity. This is the type of book I see in all music stores (what few are left, anyway). Absolutely brilliant!

Richard Maitland, author of ‘The Sex Stone of Agassia’: It was the “Elasticated Waists” that did it for me.
.
Lorraine Holloway-White, author of ‘A Guide’s Guide to Mediumship’ and ‘My Life – My Mediumship’: I adore this book although I’m saddened to know that my unhip rating is 5*. I went on holiday to Austria for our 25th wedding anniversary and, yes, we went to Salzburg on a day trip and Mozart Square. I adored that holiday so I am now officially a 5-star unhip person.

Jared Conway, author of ‘Mummy’s Boy’: I’d like to make a plea for Morris Dancing to be upgraded to 12 star status. What a great idea. Well written, light-hearted, and huge fun.

Janine Crowley Haynes, author of ‘My Kind Of Crazy’: Utterly enjoyable. I found myself giggling immediately and, sorry to report, fitting into the category of ‘unhip’. Not only is it an entertaining read, but your quirky sense of humor shines through.

George Fripley, author of ‘Wurzel of Clutton & Other People History Rightfully Forgot’: Hahahahahaha….this has made me laugh. What a great concept this book is. It’s quirky, it’s written in nice ‘bite-sized’ pieces and it is genuinely funny in a gentle way.

Raven Dane, author of ‘The Unwise Woman of Fuggis Mire’ and ‘Cyrus Darian and The Technomicron’: I am reading every word with a broad grin and many giggles. I am so relieved I am not too unhip as I loathe beige, and I’m a horse-owning, Yule-celebrating pagan…. Always disliked Gilbert O’Sullivan…phew!

Vanessa Musson, author of ‘Banana in The Briefcase’: In the umbrella family are also foldable rain hats and pac-a-macs. Generally a few more examples of unhip which spring to mind might be Daddies Sauce and salad cream, net curtains, Bruce Forsyth, boxes of tissues kept in cars and bedding plants. Oh, and Vauxhall Corsas. Your book has some interesting crossover with Nancy Mitford and her philosophy of “U” and “non-U”. Love it.

L Anne Carrington, author of ‘The Cruiserweight’: ‘Little Guide To Unhip’ is a romp, witty, and full of fun from the very first chapter, with splendid writing, well put together, and makes readers wonder “What was I thinking back in the day?”

Frank Kusy, author of ‘Sparky the Very Nervous Cat’: I didn’t realise how unhip and uncool I was until I got to chapter 3 and read that bit about flab hanging out … you’ve inspired me to get back to the gym!

Ben Hardy, author of ‘Who Needs Grapes?’: This had me nodding along, thinking “umbrellas – check, recorders – check, beige – check, no accent – check”. I fall into many of your unhip categories, and am proud of doing so.

James McPherson, author of ‘Lucifer And Auld Lang Syne’: Awwww, Gilbert – I let myself down badly here I’m afraid – was singing away very unhipply to myself. I’d forgotten most of the words though, so I suppose that counts for something….. Uncooperative umbrellas – dodgy coach trips to the land of Edelweiss and Adolf – the humble recorder – sanitary… erm…eh… you-know-whats – and many, many more… and I shall be forever in your debt for planting “ooh wacka doo” in my head again. (Can’t get the damned thing out now).

The document basically states that when being stopped for a traffic violation or questioned concerning a crime that [...]]]> Amazing how many high government officals (including the Attorney General), political pundits, politicians, school officials and religious leaders comment so harshly on the immigration law in Arizona and publicly admit they haven’t read the ten page document.

The document basically states that when being stopped for a traffic violation or questioned concerning a crime that the police have the right to ask for identification. Haven’t they been doing that for years? Every ticket I’ve ever received the first thing out of the cops mouth was license and registration.

Oddly you can ask a waspish soccer mom for her drivers license after running a stop sign but the liberals cringe, bitch and moan if you ask a non wasp for the same thing. Members of the Obama cabinet can’t say the words terrorist or radical Islam but thet can call the Governor of Arizona a racist. Absolutely amazing!

  9. I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the [...]]]>

Pick Your Reason   10. I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.   9. I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.     8. I voted Democrat because Freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.     7. I voted Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.     6. I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.     5. I voted Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of of babies through abortion so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.     4. I voted Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits.     3. I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the democrats see fit.     2. I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.     1. I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my ass that it is unlikely that I’ll ever have another point of view.

]]> http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/site/2010/05/when-your-friends-cant-explain-why-they-voted-for-democrats-give-them-this/feed/ 0 http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/site/2010/05/sb1070/ http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/site/2010/05/sb1070/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 22:25:44 +0000 Antonio de la Vega http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/site/?p=15009

¿Qué hay en verdad de fondo tras la promulgación de la ley SB1070?

Un inmigrante se columpiaba

sobre la tela de una araña

como veía qué resistía

fue a llamar a otro inmigrante…

Más que una clave archivonómica se trata de un distintivo. La ley aprobada y por entrar en vigor dentro de unas semanas en el estado de Arizona, Estados Unidos, ¿qué es? Como lo veo yo, es una llamada de atención tanto para el gobierno y la sociedad estadounidenses como para los mexicanos; y aún más, para el resto del mundo.

Estados Unidos y cada uno de sus estados son libres y soberanos para hacer dentro de sus fronteras cualquier cosa que les plazca, y que sirva para la mejor convivencia. El respeto a la ley es prioritario en Arizona como en China, pero cuando las leyes son usadas como ariete, cuando se emplean como un pretexto para otros fines, es cuando resultan sospechosas, por decir lo menos.

En México, la reacción a esta tan cacareada y polémica ley ha causado gran disgusto, incomodidad y revuelo. Ya no se diga en Estados Unidos, donde las multitudinarias y variadas manifestaciones no se han hecho esperar. Se hacen a diestra y siniestra acusaciones a la gobernadora Brewer, empleando un sinnúmero de calificativos hacia su persona y su gobierno. El despropósito está instalándose en la opinión pública. ¿En verdad se trata de una imposición “racista”? ¿Cuál es el trasfondo de una decisión de esta envergadura? ¿Se trata de la versión real de aquella película “La segunda guerra civil” protagonizada por Beau Bridges? También podría pensarse que se trata de una artimaña concertada para forzar al congreso estadounidense a tomar medidas definitivas y, de una vez por todas, votar una reforma migratoria más que suficiente, más bien moderna y ajustada a las necesidades reales tanto del país como de la gigantesca población migrante que año con año determina el dinamismo de la todavía principal economía del mundo.

Pero también puede pensarse que es una forma de acicate al gobierno y la sociedad de México, toda vez que, entrapado el país en una guerra sin cuartel contra el narcotráfico y otras linduras como la crisis económica, la influenza, etcétera, está arrinconado en la definición de soluciones concretas, viables y factibles que resuelvan el problema de la migración dentro y hacia fuera del propio México.

MIGRACIÓN ES MOVIMIENTO

De México se va la gente no por falta de oportunidades, ofertas de trabajo hay y muchas, pero pocas satisfacen las necesidades y expectativas de la población. El campo ha sido abandonado a su suerte y la población rural ha optado por ceder a las “bondades” de la vida urbana. Sueldos bajísimos combinados con costos altísimos de diversa índole obligan a las clases bajas y media (lo que queda de ella) a hacer malabares, recurriendo a desempeñarse en más de una actividad para llevar el sustento a casa y cumplir medianamente con sus obligaciones más elementales. La concentración de poder político y económico en unas cuantas familias y empresas (sin hacer hincapié en las trasnacionales, muchas de ellas estadounidenses) ha hecho de México un laberinto cuyo centro no puede ser hallado si no como reliquia del pasado, y la salida, la mejor que puede ofrecerse, generalmente es la fácil y a contra pelo de las normas y los ordenamientos: piratería, comercio informal, narcomenudeo, entre otras.

De México y hacia el sur el problema es similar, claro que con matices según el país y la región. Hoy, México junto con el resto de Latinoamérica, ha decidido “dar la espalda” a Estados Unidos y formar un bloque común, con fundamento en lo que les es común, la cultura, el idioma. Latinoamérica en su conjunto es mayoría en población comparada con Estados Unidos y Canadá; pero, en otros factores por supuesto que son el contrapeso justo del continente estos otros dos. Por eso también México y el resto de Latinoamérica caminan de la mano de Estados Unidos. Pura conveniencia mutua. La división norte-sur, por maniquea, es parte de lo que está generando la mecánica del continente. Estados Unidos y Canadá, por su nivel de vida, son objetivo aspiracional para muchos latinoamericanos. Estos, al llegar a la “tierra prometida” ven, en la mayoría de los casos, que sus “sueños” se convierten en pesadillas, máxime cuando terminan siendo explotados, ninguneados, desprovistos de los derechos más elementales.

Está mal México, sí, porque no hace lo que debería para retener a su población. Pero también está mal Estados Unidos, porque está haciendo todo lo posible porque no entre en su territorio la materia prima humana que históricamente ha definido al país como lo que es, uno formado desde la raíz por inmigrantes (y, recordemos, no siempre de la mejor estofa, como muchos de los primeros colonizadores).

AL DEMONIO LAS FRONTERAS

En una época cuando las fronteras cada vez están más desdibujadas, la migración, sea por causas de turismo o por búsqueda de la supervivencia, acentúa y complica los conceptos añejos que teníamos de soberanía y nacionalismo, por mencionar dos. Al amparo de la “seguridad nacional” y el miedo irracional al “terrorismo” (también a los rebeldes que defienden sus causas nobles se les llama ahora de ese modo), países como Estados Unidos hacen lo que China hace dos siglos: cerrarse. Mientras, China hace lo contrario y ¡miren cómo está y a dónde va!

Entender los tiempos no es algo que a los gobiernos estadounidenses se les haya dado con cierta facilidad históricamente. En México, en cambio, seguimos viviendo de los rencores no asimilados.

Un genetista estadounidense ya demostró con sus investigaciones que el concepto de “raza” es no sólo una estupidez, sino el más imbécil pretexto para la discriminación. Todos tenemos de todos en nuestros genes. Pero no es más grave la discriminación por esta causa. La verdaderamente grave es la que obedece a prejuicios infundados, al odio irracional.

En una de mis primeras colaboraciones a SWI afirmé, y lo sostengo, que yo sí discrimino. Es natural la discriminación, es parte del proceso adaptativo de todas las especies. Discrimino cuando tengo que elegir entre comerme una manzana o una naranja, para ello aquilato sus propiedades, mi gusto, mi necesidad del momento. Pero entre este concepto en su acepción lógica, incluso ecológica y antropológica, y el uso que se le da cotidianamente al tratar con el otro sólo distan la grosería, la obsecación, la egolatría.

Los seres humanos nos debemos mucho a cada cual, y sería muy sano empezar a imaginar un mundo sin más fronteras. Ya estamos tan revueltos, que las líneas divisorias están de más. Estados Unidos (pero no únicamente) se ha dedicado a imponer su voluntad a otras naciones mediante recursos transfronterizos y pretextando mil y una razones, muchas de ellas bastante ridículas cuando no enojosas. Entonces, quieren o no quieren fronteras. Quieren mandar en el mundo, pero que el mundo no rebase el límite de… ¿de qué? Quieren ser el policía del mundo, pero en vez de admiración, como el policía de la película muda ganan animadversión y recelo de parte de los demás.

HABLANDO DE NACIONES Y TRAICIONES

Cuando un estadounidense muere fuera de su territorio, el mundo es el territorio estadounidense y hay que mover cielo, mar y tierra para dar con la justicia. Es un país que de suyo ha promovido la acción mercenaria. En México, nuestra Constitución pena al ciudadano que pelea en las filas de un ejército extranjero por causas ajenas a México, son traidores a la patria. Eso son muchos mexicanos enrolados para pelear como carne de cañón en Irak, Afganistán… Son traidores a México. Pero con en México somos muy románticos, además de ignorantes de nuestras propias leyes, cuando muere un mexicano “heróicamente” en esas tierras tan lejanas, en vez de señalarlo ensalzamos su memoria como la de “alguien que luchó por la libertad y la democracia”. ¡Pamplinas! Nos merecen respeto los familiares perdidos en algún enclave de la Sierra Madre, es humanitario allegarles el cuerpo para darle cristiana sepultura y consuelo. Es comprensible la actitud, pero entonces ¿a qué estamos jugando? ¿Somos o no somos?

¿Es para enorgullecerse pelear guerras ajenas para países que, aun cuando sus ideales son nobles, su fundamento es contrario a los intereses más básicos? El soldado mexicano en el ejército estadounidense, ese que come tacos y hamburguesas, ese que llegó de mojado y ya como recluta porta su green card, mastica a medias su lengua materna y escupe la adoptada, no es más que un mercenario. Un inmigrante y mercenario; mientras tenga papeles es tolerado, de lo contrario…

Contradicciones tenemos todos. Preocupante es que las contradicciones nos lleven a definiciones y decisiones contrarias a nuestra naturaleza. ¿Cuál es la naturaleza y el espíritu de la ley SB1070?

She certainly was once but not, apparently, any more. She is officially deemed to have lived outside South Africa too long and has had her citizenship withdrawn.

Fortunately she is not stateless. She is [...]]]> My wife was born in South Africa and is thus a South African citizen – or so you might think.

She certainly was once but not, apparently, any more. She is officially deemed to have lived outside South Africa too long and has had her citizenship withdrawn.

Fortunately she is not stateless. She is a naturalised British Citizen, a status obtained after four years of residency in the UK and reinforced by marriage to a British-born British citizen.

One of her ‘friends’ said she didn’t sympathise in the least with her loss of South African citizenship. She had made her choices.

And, let’s face it, a South African passport is one of the more useless ones on this earth. When we got married, the only country in the world which would accept a South African citizen without requiring a visa was Ecuador. We went on our honeymoon to Ecuador.

Maybe all this is unremarkable, but it does raise issues as to what citizenship really means and as to where it is headed.

Once upon a time, citizenship was nearly always acquired by birth. It said that you belonged to that country, that you had a right to live in that country and that you might be protected by the government of that country if something happened to you abroad. It was your country by default. It was where you were repatriated to.

One of the first countries to break this rule was the U.S. which opened its doors to immigrants to whom it offered American citizenship so long as they wholeheartedly embraced it as their mother country.

This opened up the possibility of mass citizenship by choice. It had always been possible to gain another citizenship by individual application on the grounds of residency, political influence or political asylum, but this, as far as I know, was a new concept – a wholesale offer of citizenship to more or less anyone who applied for it.

Another country to break the rule, or at least to adapt the rule radically, was the UK who decided in 1972, when Idi Amin threw the Asians out of Uganda, that it really didn’t like some of its citizens very much, or at least enough to have them turning up in Britain. Under hurriedly introduced legislation it declared that being a British citizen gave you no right per se to live in Britain. For that you needed to be a ‘patrial’ – fundamentally that at least one of your grandparents was born on the British mainland

Then came the European Union which gave citizenship a whole new gloss. If you are a citizen of an EU member state you are automatically entitled, with some very limited provisos, to pick up your bags and live in any other EU state you wish. In some countries, you don’t even have to register that you have turned up. You can send your children to local state schools but, beyond that, you can live in a parallel administrative universe without interacting with any national government mechanisms whatsoever, as a virtual citizen of the world.

So, on the one side, you have some African states that wish to expel a whole class of citizens of their country by birth, and on the other you have freedom of movement across 44 European countries collectively comprising a third of the world’s economy.

Personally, I have a fierce distrust of nationalism and would much prefer to be a world citizen.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if anyone could live anywhere they liked?

Countries could even begin to segment themselves by themes – matriarchies, predominantly gay & lesbian countries, countries who allow the open purchase and consumption of drugs, countries who offer euthanasia, hot / cold / temperate countries, countries affiliated with a particular religion, countries that don’t believe in the work ethic, countries that don’t have any speed limits, countries specifically developed for connoisseurs of food and wine.

Dammit (or is that hallelujah), I think we are almost there.

This time of year marks sacred holy days in two major religions which are forever linked together. The celebration of Passover leads easily to Easter. People worldwide observe and  celebrate one or the other. The question must be asked if their state of happiness is affected by what they believe. [...]]]>

author Kristen Houghton

This time of year marks sacred holy days in two major religions which are forever linked together. The celebration of Passover leads easily to Easter. People worldwide observe and  celebrate one or the other. The question must be asked if their state of happiness is affected by what they believe. Does religion make you happier?  Or does it simply amplify what you already have?

Religion has two important things going for it. The first is a sense of community with others who share the same belief system . Out of this community comes a social connection that can be helpful and supportive in many ways.  It is a positive sense of belonging we all seem to look for in our lives.

The second is a firm conviction that you’re not alone in this life.  The  idea that there is a loving, caring God to whom you can go for guidance, coupled with a belief that life doesn’t end after death, is comforting. This can only add to your happiness. It affects personal happiness, living successfully,  and individual growth.

Religion can be good for you. If you look at people who truly believe in their faith and a benevolent God, you will find those who see themselves as worthy of happiness. God loves them, what could be better than that? They generally attract like-minded individuals into their lives because that is what they are subconsciously looking for.  They don’t allow themselves to be made to feel less than what they know they are worth. Their religion confirms who they are and what they achieve in life. Happiness is a by-product of faith.

But, cautions my friend and colleague, Rabbi Ben Elias, religion can also be bad for you.

“If you had a religious experience that made you feel miserable and fearful then religion affects your happiness in adverse ways. You can’t feel a strong connection to a punishing God.”

This statement  is seconded by Bill Taylor, an Episcopal priest, who adds,

“Religious experience is everything.  While religion doesn’t guarantee you’ll be happy, a good  one can be a catalyst that ups the odds for happiness in life; a bad one has little value. ”

Believing in a higher power does seem to be a happiness factor for many people. We seem to go on spiritual searches to find the right match for our needs. Perhaps that is why some people are willing to change beliefs. We are looking for a feeling of belonging and peace that is comforting as well as comfortable.

One of the constants of personal happiness  for all people is the achieving of your goals. Religion is a great help in this instance because you do not feel as if you are alone in your quest. There is help and hope available from someone or something greater than yourself. It takes the worry out of making decisions when you know  a powerful force is looking out for you.

Can you be happy even if you’re not religious? Yes. As Bill Taylor said, religion doesn’t guarantee happiness. Happiness is created from both inside and outside forces in your life. Successfully combining both is the key.

Yet during the days leading up to Passover and Easter, a sense of the peace that can lead to happiness seems to follow those people who have strong beliefs. Maybe religion doesn’t make you happy but perhaps it does enhance what happiness you do have. The connection seems to affirm this.

copyright 2010 Kristen Houghton

And Then I’ll Be Happy! book at Amazon

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            Before I continue on with this little narrative, I need to address something that was stated in one of the replies to this post, something I read and I did not digest too well.  Someone stated that [I] should somehow befriend my bully….  [...]]]> Me and My Bully: A Kind of Essay (continued)

            Before I continue on with this little narrative, I need to address something that was stated in one of the replies to this post, something I read and I did not digest too well.  Someone stated that [I] should somehow befriend my bully….  That person obviously misses the whole point of this “essay” and, certainly, misunderstands me, the writer and target of the bully. 

I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BEING FRIENDS WITH FUCKING BULLIES!  I WANT TO SEE THEM ALL ROUNDED UP, LOCKED INSIDE THE SAME BUILDING THAT EVENTUALLY GETS TARGETED BY TERRORISTS FLYING A JET AIRPLANE INTO IT!

            Now, back to my narrative.

            I had two (2) earlier bullies while working for the State.  One of those earlier bullies even had one of those deformed hands, the kind that did not fully develop, with maybe two good digits and a thumb, but this did not prevent him, that one was a male, from being a real prick and just evil and spiteful.  So, this is why I don’t hold to the notion that bullies are the way they are because they were picked on and bullied by others…, blah, blah, blah.  We all could or should be bullies depending on what childhood illnesses we may have had or the way we were reared or because of other bullies we encountered along the way.  My next bully, the one who made the ‘…clean up so-and-so’s cubicle remark, retired shortly afterwards and was reported to have been diagnosed with cancer.  Good for her.  And she was a bully…, what…because she had cancer?  She may have gotten the cancer because she was an evil prick.  I’m just saying.

            My current bully is just ugly and ignorant, with a mean streak. This person, initials S-B-K, having not much to do, decided that of all the people in the unit, they were going to turn their attention on me and attempt to bully me.  Bullies like to believe that they are using a kind of psychological (I doubt many of them can spell the word, much less know what it means) warfare when they are fully engaged in bullying.  Certainly, bullying can have “psychological” effects, but I hold to the notion that if the target can utilize some tactics then the bully turns out to be the real victim (of their own making) and deserves, in time, a punishment for the behavior.

            Beginning with a poor evaluation that was eight months late, at that, and filled with lies and other falsehoods (grasping at a copying incident), I could only sigh and go, Oh, boy, here I go again.  This bully then proceeded to conduct the evaluation review, which began almost immediately with contentious tones, in an open forum and in earshot of others in surrounding cubicles ( I could be wrong, but because I have supervised others before coming to work for the State and would never have treated others like this, this might be a no-no in the Supervisor’s Handbook).  From a poor evaluation, the bullying moved to a lame example of inept copying, poor attitude, others feel this way about me (in addition to my bully), to trying to attack my competence in doing other office functions.

            One of the tactics I use with bullies is to listen carefully to what is being said because I will most likely get to use something later (hint: I am a writer after all).  My bully fell right into my hands.  The evaluation was done in mid December and, needless to say, an upcoming office party would be an ideal opportunity, for me, to do a little payback.  On the very day of the bureau luncheon, I got dressed to the nines, and just shortly before others were going to be heading out to their cars and to the restaurant, I sent an email to others stating why I would not be joining them (specifically my bullying immediate supervisor) at the restaurant/luncheon.  The email went, in part, like this:

Some of you have been inquiring and then some of you might notice that I am not joining you for lunch this season and I want to explain myself a little.

[Bully] is of the opinion that I am, somewhat, incompetent when it comes to making copies…, that’s right, I am not making copies correctly, and [Bully] brought this up only during my evaluation discussions with her.  It was the first and only time that I ever heard, from {Bully] specifically, that there was ever a problem with my handling making copies.

I hold a MA and not one but two academic awards from two separate institutions of higher learning…, and here I am, according to [Bully], incompetent when it comes to making copies.  When I think about the gazzillions of copies I must have made in my lifetime, with no complaints from others (that I can remember), I could not believe [Bully]’s pettiness (just trying to find something, anything, to get me on…)….

Furthermore, to defend [Bully]‘s position about my incompetent copying, [Bully] said that [Bully] does not bring these errors up with me because of my attitude…, and that (again) others have a problem with my attitude.  Once again, if any of you are having a problem with my work performance or my attitude, you have to let me know and I will try to work better and make necessary changes.

So, needless to say, I won’t be joining you for holiday celebrations because of what [Bully] wrote and said during my evaluation discussion with [Bully].  Since I don’t know if any of what [Bully] said about other staff holding issues with me is true or not, I would not feel very good about socializing with staff this season.

One other thing, while I am at it.

I take a little personal issue with [Bully]‘s word choice in her email to me (see below).  You have to be a person of color to understand, specifically, why I take some offense at what [Bully] wrote.  And, if you care to look closely, [Bully] sent it to me (et.al.) the day before Thanksgiving.

Enjoy your luncheon.

            I edited the original for our purposes, here, so replace “Bully” with the initials for my bully (S-B-K) and you get the point.  Since this bully had gone public with my evaluation and was even brash enough to include others as also having problems with me, which I knew to be some more of what bullies do, lying and then including others in their sickness, I thought I’d have a little fun and take the bully public, too.  This is something that I strongly suggest that others do wherever and whenever possible, understanding of course that [to] every little action, there’s a reaction (per Bob Marly, et. al in Reaction).

            Oh, yeah, that earlier email, sent by my immediate supervising bully, on 11/25/09, went like this:

As a token of my appreciation for all you do (especially the times we have been short of staff) and as an early Christmas gift, I would like to pay for your lunches at the party. Please let me know what you would like from the menu.

thanks,

            Now, that’s sick.  Bully first writes an offensive email, then writes an even more offensive evaluation, lying throughout that document, and then, still, has plans for me (at least) to attend an event with the bully.  That is sick.

            Because of my email about the luncheon, which was sent to staff and some bosses, one of whom sent her own email (earlier than mine) to bow out of going to the luncheon with her own explanation (so I felt fully justified in sending my own “explanation”), I was called into one of the bosses’ office where, of course, my bully was in attendance, too.  The upper boss looked a little stressed.  It seemed that he was being called in to handle matters during what was supposed to be his vacation (I could not help but wonder, because I had been through this before with others, if the bully had bullied the boss into coming in like this?). 

            Long story short, boss tried to scream up on me about sending certain emails, blah, blah, blah, and it dawned on me, like in the past, I might have another bully to contend with.  Here’s the thing.  Certainly my immediate supervisor-bully was not happy with being “outed” the way I chose to out this person, to go public with the bullying, in short to shame the bully.  Say what you will, it does work.  The bully was not expecting me to do this, and the others, although a little uncomfortable (at first) with the email, many were too familiar with this nasty little bully and were secretly happy and proud of what I had done (Others may have been targets, too, of the bully but did not know how to or that they could stand up against their bully).

            Although the upper boss literally screamed, STOP IT!, I took this to mean that both bully and I were to stop the behavior and the emails.  But, the bully kept at it (as I felt would happen) and I had to keep pushing back at the behavior, via emails (that at least did not name the bully directly but left little doubt as to what was going on).  This led to another meeting between bully, myself and a different upper boss (one that I sort of actually respect…, so this might work to my advantage) and at which the bully did not any documents for me to sign saying nonsense like, “…you were told not to do blah, blah, blah and you went ahead and defied all sorts of edicts and laws and therefore…, blah, blah, blah, and this will go in your personnel folder…).  The bully did hint to me that Personnel knew…something…. 

            I’m near the end of this, so bare with me. 

            The meeting with the other upper boss and bully happened on a Friday and on the following Monday, because of my “respect” for this other boss, I called my own meeting in which, with documents in hand, I laid out for the other boss this whole sordid affair and why and how I saw it to be bullying in it’s truest and ugliest form, coming from my immediate supervisor, my bully.  I left that meeting thinking that if boss doesn’t quite get it, said boss at least got it, meaning at least I told someone else now.

            I also called a meeting with Personnel and laid it out for the HR person in that bureau.  HR (Human Resources) enjoys playing the Devil’s Advocate, and really there is no pun intended here, they really do like siding with management and supervisors over workers (and this despite, now get this, the HR person informing me that they had been a “victim” to bullying, too).  I was floored, but somewhat reassured that at least one other person knew what’s-what and I didn’t feel completely alone in all of this.  So, again, once my bully informed me (inadvertently or not) that Personnel was aware of things, I trumped my bully by calling my own meeting with HR and laying things out.  As it turned out, this was a good decision on my part.

            Eleven days after the Friday meeting, minus four for weekends and throw in a State Holiday, my bully calls me into a one-on-one “Supervision” meeting and immediately informs me that she has this one page document for me to sign reiterating that I did a bad thing by sending the second email (which did not name names, btw), and that this was going to be placed in my personal history folder.  I was shaking my boots, trying to hold back the laughter that was aching to burst out of my chest like the Alien monster.  Suffice it to say, people, you had to see this lame typed thing that my bully, Susan Brisley Knapik, ooops!, wrote and was threatening me with having this thing placed in my Personnel folder.  On the very thing she (Susan Brisley Knapik) wrote, it stated that write out my own defense and have it accompany this document…, and what do you think I did people?  Take a guess.

            The very same person from HR, that I met with only a day earlier, now was going to receive, along with bully’s lame reprimand, the two articles about bullying and trauma in the workplace (due to bullying), all of the emails (from everyone), and my nearly three page “defense” against the document that my bully wanted in my folder and she, Susan Brisley Knapik, somehow believed I would be, what, ashamed of? 

            All through this exchange, between the bully and myself, the bully believed that they were, well, bullying me and it was me doing the manipulating all along.  I was using my skills and training and education to set my own little traps for the bully.  Keep in mind, people, a bully is oftentimes known as a bully by others.  The “others” come forward in their own little ways to assist both bully and target(s) and what I do is I throw a lot of dirt into the air and when the dirt settles I know better who my primary bully is and whether there are other bullies in the midst.

            In short (and in conclusion), you have to stand up against bullying.  It’s abusive and does not have to be tolerated.  If you’re a writer, use that talent to do two things, write yourself into trouble (knowing that there will be a reaction) and out of trouble (and my “defense” papers, along with posting online and later it will be a few poems to be published in an upcoming book…, so the bully wins nothing but the disdain from others, were all a part of my own manipulative behavior with my bully).  I sort of like my bullies, in only that they are good material for writing about, whether in these kinds of online narratives, on documents to be seen by HR and placed into folders, or later for poems (if that’s your thing…, like mine is) that will be published (and this bully already has a poem in my third book, All The Killers Gathered. 

Bullies are so stupid.

            Whew!  It is February 19th, 2010 and two days ago I think I brought my bully down.  I say I think I did this because with bullies, those that are not jailed or killed because of their behavior, they just keep up the behavior until [...]]]> Me and My Bully: A Kind of Essay

            Whew!  It is February 19^th, 2010 and two days ago I think I brought my bully down.  I say I think I did this because with bullies, those that are not jailed or killed because of their behavior, they just keep up the behavior until one or the other (jail or death) occurs.

            Have you ever been bullied?

            What exactly is bullying, you might ask?

            In short, it is not very nice behavior…, on the part of the bully, of course.

            Let me attempt to address a few things here; what bullying is, how I found myself in a bullying situation (I was/am being bullied, not bullying) and the things I did to address and try to bring down my bully).

What is bullying?  Simply put, someone picks on someone else.  The bully can be male or female and their subjects/victims/targets and be the same sex or members of the opposite sex.  One bully can have one or a multiple of targets.  Multiple bullies can have one or a multiple of targets.  Got it?  It’s already a little “ugly” and stressful in this simply explanation, huh.  The school-yard bully [ies] quickly comes to mind, with their, “Give me your lunch money, kid,” exclamations and hanging around just to harass students and sometimes even faculty, until it usually leads to parents and police and jail time and, if severe enough, someone’s death or serious injury.  Bullying is ugly and it oftentimes leads to a whole lot of people being involved.  And, keep in mind, that’s just the school bully [ies].

The other type of bully is often found in the workplace (aside from inside the home and between family members or neighbors, etc.).  The workplace bully is usually someone in a supervisory capacity, someone with some power over another, but it also go the other way.  It can get complicated (and I strongly suggest that if you’re being bullied, read the literature.  If you’re a bully all I can say is where is a terrorist when I need one with an airplane to crash into a building filled with all the bullies of the world…)?  Back to this later.

Bully in the workplace.  Right.  My immediate supervisor, initials S-B-K, is a bully.  I have no shame in indicating my bully’s initials.  I could do worse.  Let’s leave it at that.  In the workplace, similar to the playground or elsewhere, this bullying can begin in a variety of manners; verbally, with cussing, threatening language, even sexual harassment, rumors, and the like.  It can also begin with something as subtle as a poor evaluation, which happened to me.  I am not lying when I say that despite the fact that I am a state worker and all the “shame” that comes with being one, I am a good state worker in that, knock wood, I have not missed a day out sick in nearly nine years; I keep an excellent time sheet (I don’t abuse time with lateness or excessive call-offs, etc.); I enjoy doing my job; I get along rather well with other staff members (except my bully, of course); and I am, I think, well liked and respected by staff (except the bully) and others in the building.  That said, all of the above are oftentimes areas that the bully goes after when they are fully engaged in the act of bullying. 

Remember, too, the clinical people will say that the typical bully is someone who was bullied in the past, blah, blah, blah, and I don’t hold that position so easily.  I, simply, believe that most bullies are just pricks and assholes with too much time on their hands, are very undereducated (what with spending so much time in schoolyards punking others for lunch money instead of textbooks and assistance with exams, or learning to read and write).  So, I don’t care if my immediate supervisor (again, the initials are S-B-K) and bully was teased and picked on when younger and even more uglier than now (and definitely more ignorant than now…, if that’s even possible), I want this person in the same building with the others when the planes come….

So, a poor evaluation, riddled with lies and falsehoods and inaccuracies, was the indicator, to me, that I had just stepped into a bully’s domain.  This person, initials people, initials…, conducted this [poor] evaluation session on the floor in earshot of others; told me to my face that not only did [this person, with certain initials] feel this way about me, but then proceeded to name others who held the same feels; when asked to come up with an example of my “incompetence,” could only grasp in the dark for a copying instance….  That’s right people, this bully, not finding anything concrete to “hang” on me, could only try to use some lame example that was connected to me copying something for the bully, said person not getting the original back the way they gave it to me, and that, somehow, I have done this in the past numerous times….  I was dumbfounded.  I don’t know how many copies I have made over the years, but you will just have to take my word that, well, making copies…, a trained monkey…, even an untrained one could do copies blindfolded.  But, this is something a bully does, tries to undermine their target, attack competence, intelligence, reputation, and so on.

Finding myself in a bullying atmosphere.  This was not my first bully.  The very person that my bully took over after the previous one retired, was also a bully.  So, my bully, initials S-B-K, was, in turn, trained by a previous bully, initials L-B (diagnosed with cancer shortly afterwards and before some of you are quick to go, “Ah, poor thing…,” I was glad of the news and if that other bully is still alive, that person gets a chair in the building soon to be wiped out with an airplane). 

Back to my bully.

It was clear to me, from a poor evaluation, when as I stood up for myself against lies and challenged the lame copying example (at which time the bully, of course, said I have ‘attitude”), that I had a new bully.  And it did not phase my new bully when I hinted to this new one that I dealt with the previous one, mentioning that other bully by name, no initials (L-B, with cancer).  New bully must have saw that as a challenge of some sort.  Idiot. My new bully is an idiot.  So be it.

The steps I took to bring down my [idiot] bully.  If I sensed, almost immediately, that I had another bully on my hands, because I already had a previous one and survived that creep (whose bullying got so bad that that person had the audacity to say to me, in the presence of others, that I needed to clean up the cubicle of another sloppy worker and I had to say in the presence of others that I was nobody’s damn slave), I immediately knew that my previous skills, tactics, and training would have to be called on again to tackle this new idiot…, uh, bully.

- – TO BE CONTINUED – -

Such a dysfunctional attitude might be catching. It might be socially and irresistibly viral. As parents, we spend every day combating even the hint of its symptoms, like ‘flu and cancer. “But you must [...]]]> I can already see the shock on your faces, the blood leeching from your veins, the rolling of your eyes.

Such a dysfunctional attitude might be catching. It might be socially and irresistibly viral. As parents, we spend every day combating even the hint of its symptoms, like ‘flu and cancer. “But you must go to school,” we glare, “and there is an end on it.”

He certainly has bad educational genes. I hated school, although I was quite good at it (I have four university degrees). My wife loathed it too, as did many in my immediate family.

But one of our sons is worse than that.

He gets asthma every night. He actually stopped breathing last week during his exams. School makes him miserable and it even risks killing him.

Universal education is an extraordinary achievement, driven for the mass of the population to feed the new industrial bureaucracy that was emerging in the 19th century which required factory and office workers, and driven at higher levels of society to develop colonial administrators and government officials.

Universal education is locked into a virtuous circle with social media which has created spiralling standards in applied knowledge. People are cynical when they hear that examination performances are rising irresistibly, but I can well believe it. Who can do their children’s 12 year old maths? Who even knew where Haiti was 50 years ago? In my home town there had been three writers associated with the place within recorded history, the first in the 17th century. Since the 1960s, over 60 published writers alone have sprung up, never mind visual artists, musicians and all the rest.

Bureaucratically, society functions to such a point where we get incensed when it doesn’t work, or fear that it will, rather than dance jigs when it does.

But rigorous educational standards and processes do not benefit some children who can still be useful to our society and maybe among the most useful. The world’s richest people rarely have good educational qualifications. Britain’s top entrepreneurs barely have an exam pass between them. 50% of them are functionally dyslexic, an aptitude (or lack of) which was formally considered evidence of inherent imbecility until recently.

What is interesting is how the dyslexic mind works. It is not only about a difficulty in reading words, but it is also about energetic restlessness, insatiable curiosity and great daring – the ‘unreasonable mind’ that GB Shaw referred to when he said that only unreasonable people can change the world. Dyslexic business people rarely do things directly themselves. They manage to pull together a team which they plug into the mains and challenge remorselessly to achieve extraordinary things. I do not know if Steve Jobs of Apple is dyslexic, but he certainly has many symptoms typical of dyslexia.

Our son is like that. You might say “Ah, he is ADD”, but he has not the slightest problem concentrating. If he is involved in something that impassions him, you could set a dragon on him and he wouldn’t notice, you have to shout at him five times before he responds, and you can only drive him to bed with a chair and a whip. Boy, can he concentrate, but he will only concentrate on things that interest him. Faced with anything else, his mind wanders off into more enchanting territories.

Your other suggestion is probably that he is autistic, the sort of autistic child who loves being with people. Supposedly about 99.9% of the population is autistic – autism has megalomaniac colonising pretensions. He is definitely not autistic.

Anyway, however you may wish to classify him, schools cannot cope with his approach, much as his school is superbly managed and really tries to accommodate him. The state educational system is about developing all-rounders. Our son is lopsided, but so are geniuses. Lopsidedness is almost the prescription for expertise – spending all your time within a narrow field you are passionate about is highly likely to build your knowledge of that field well beyond the reach of most others.

There are solutions to our son’s educational needs – he does have educational needs – but standard schooling is not one of them. It distorts his growth and it could well end up killing him.

Do you know any other children like that?

By Angela Posey-Arnold

“What are you getting for Christmas this year, Jimmy? I think I’m getting a record player. I picked one out at Elmore’s.” Bonnie said to her friend and classmate at lunch.

Jimmy swallowed the last bite of apple, “A record player? [...]]]> Christmas 1947-Alabama (Not so much unlike Christmas 2009–Alabama—same heart–same spirit)

By Angela Posey-Arnold

“What are you getting for Christmas this year, Jimmy? I think I’m getting a record player. I picked one out at Elmore’s.” Bonnie said to her friend and classmate at lunch.

Jimmy swallowed the last bite of apple, “A record player? That will be neat. I’m hoping to get the .22 Winchester I asked for. I need it for hunting. I think I will get it”.

“I can’t wait for the class Christmas party tomorrow. The best thing is being out of Haleyville Junior High School for the Christmas Holidays. Mother made some cookies for our eighth grade party. Oh, by the way, we want you to go with us to town this afternoon. And stay with us for the Tree Decorating Downtown tonight. Can you go if my Mom picks you up?” Jimmy asked.

“Sure, I’ll go. I know my parents will let me. I have some packages to wrap but it can wait. What time is she coming to get me?” Bonnie asked.

“About 3:30. She wants us to go shopping for something with her. Then we’ll go help decorate the tree and wait for the lights to be turned on. I always love that part.” Jimmy laughed.

“I’ll be ready at three o’clock”. Bonnie said hurrying back to class chattering with the other girls.

Jimmy’s Mother, Mrs. Godsey, watched the children in her first grade class walking home. As she tidied her small cold classrom the thought of the children haunted her.  “If they get a coat for Christmas it will be a miracle, I know they won’t have toys like the other children.Just look at them. Poor farmer’s children with tattered clothes. The harvest was poor because of the drought. They will be going home to empty cupboards and no Christmas presents. I heard Jimmy say he wanted a rifle but I can’t do it. I cannot buy that rifle knowing these children will have nothing, by no fault of their own.It is just the circumstances of being the sons and daughters of farmer in this small rural community.I am thankful for this old school, there is no way they would get an education without it here so close.” She thought as she closed the classroom door for the last time in 1947. “Lord, please help them.”

She heard loud and clear the still small voice. “You help them. You have the money and it would be a good lesson for Jimmy and Bonnie.”

“Oh Lord, forgive me. I should have thought of it. I will, I just have to figure out a way to do it without them knowing. Farmers are very particular about not taking charity and making it on their own. I do not want them to know I did it. I’ll think of something. Help me Lord, Your Will be done.”

“Jimmy, are you in your room? Get your coat it is going to be a cold night for decorating the tree downtown. And Jimmy, wear your old shoes.” Mrs. Godsey called to Jimmy.

“My old shoes? Why Momma? I don’t want to wear my old shoes. Everyone will be in town. You want me to look like a tramp? I don’t know why you bought these new shoes if you won’t let me wear them.” Jimmy complained.

“Just do it, son. And call Bonnie and make sure she is not wearing dress up clothes. Tell her to wear her dungarees.”

“Okay. I don’t get it. But, okay. Bonnie will think I have lost my marbles but okay. Mothers!” Jimmy picked up the telephone to call Bonnie. He had to wait while Mrs. Hyatt and Mrs. Murphy complained about their bunions for five long minutes on the party line. “Could yall talk about this later? It is 3:00, the Christmas Tree Decorating starts at 5:30 and I need to call Bonnie Self.”

“Talk to you later, Myrtle. Soak your feet in Epsom salt” Mrs. Hyatt said as she finally hung up the phone so Jimmy could make the call. He told Bonnie what his Mother said and she agreed to wear her old pants and shoes. “I don’t understand your Mother sometimes, Jimmy” Bonnie giggled.

“Me either, but let’s just do it. Maybe she is going to take us to the movie later. See you in a few minutes. Bye.”

Bonnie was ready and waiting when the Godsey’s drove up to get her. She ran to the car. It had started to snow and with every flake the excitement of the season increased. Downtown Haleyville was all a buzz with late shoppers. The stores were decorated with nativity scenes and carols played from the stores.

“Okay, children. We are going to go to Elmore’s and Haye’s Hardware. Here is some money. Jimmy you pick out three toys for boys. Bonnie you pick out three things you think a girl would like. I have some shopping to do. Charge it at Haye’s and I will meet you at the Drug Store for hot chocolate at 5:00. We will have just enough time for a sandwich and some hot chocolate before they light the tree.”

“Mother, who are we buying these for?” Jimmy asked.

“Some kids in my class. Now hurry along.”

“This is so much fun. I love buying gifts. I found some very pretty things for girls. What did you find, Jimmy? Bonnie said as she carefully removed the gifts from the bag to show Jimmy.

“Wow, I got some good stuff. Trains, balls and even a toy tractor with moving parts. Whoever these kids are they are going to love this. Here comes Mother. Let’s order so we are not late.” Jimmy ordered sandwiches and hot chocolate and the three of them warmed by the wood stove in the Drug Store.

  The streets of town lined with people waiting for the annual Christmas Tree Lighting. The snow picked up pace enough to raise the spirits of hope so prevalent in the Christmas season. The Baptist Pastor stood and read the Christmas story from the book of Luke. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:1-14 KJV)

 After a prayer of thanksgiving to God for sending Jesus, the Saviour of the world, the chubby mayor with pomp and circumstance that only a politician can muster, lit the tree. The lights, white, red, blue, green, shined so brightly and the Star on the top of the tree warmed the hearts of all. The lights were bright and so beautiful; Jimmy looked over and smiled at Bonnie.

“Are you crying? What in the world are you crying about, girl? It is a happy occasion.” Jimmy said as he shook his head, whispering under his breath, ‘girls’!”

“I am crying because I am happy.” Bonnie said wiping her tears and laughing.

“That is so weird. Let’s go find Mother. I am freezing.” Jimmy said as he made his way through the crowd who had started singing, ‘Joy to The World’.

Meeting back at the car the two kids carried the bags of toys. Mrs. Godsey opened the trunk. It was full of food and other items. “Okay kids we need to bag all this up into three different bags. Put a boy’s gift and a girl’s gift in each bag and we will fill the rest of the bag with fruit and food. Let’s get busy it is getting late.” The threesome filled each bag and got into the car.

“Mother, can you explain this to us now?” We thought we were going to go to the movie. I don’t think we are going to the movie Bonnie.” Jimmy stated.

“Kids, I want you to realize how blessed you are. You two along with most of your classmates have so much and some people do not. I am not sure you realize the children who will not get anything for Christmas this year. We are going to make sure that doesn’t happen. We are going to be Santa for them. But, you can’t tell anyone we did this. And we are going to have to be very sneaky about it.”

“Oh this sounds like fun.” Bonnie said

“It will be joy. I want you to see how giving really is more blessed than receiving. We are going to ride out to the Pebble community. Mr. Posey’s store is closed this time of the evening and the school is closed until after the New Year. It will be dark but our eyes will adjust. We will visit three different homes. These are the homes of some of my students. We can’t let them see us or hear us. I am going to drive the car to the end of the road and turn the lights off so they don’t see us. Then each of you will take a bag and very quietly sneak up to the porch and place it in front of the door. Then run! Run behind a tree or in a ditch and hide. I’ll be hiding too.”

“Bonnie, this is gonna be neat. Ain’t it, Bonnie? Bonnie are you crying again? GIRLS! What are you crying about now?”Jimmy asked.

“I just feel so sorry for them. I am so glad we are going to help them. I can’t help but cry. I just didn’t realize there were people right here at home that would not get anything for Christmas.” She replied through tears.

“Bonnie, this is exactly why I wanted you to come along with us. We need your help. And you have such a tender heart I knew you would be the perfect one to help. Jimmy, stop teasing her. This will be a Christmas you will never forget because you gave. You will learn tonight why Jesus said, ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’. Try not to cry for a while. You need to be watching where you are going. I can’t have you falling and getting hurt.” Mrs. Godsey hugged Bonnie and they gathered the bags.

Jimmy shook his head, “Girls! I feel good about giving too, but I aint gonna cry about it.”

“Oh hush, Jimmy. Let’s get going.” Bonnie skipped off in front of him.

Mrs. Godsey followed along behind the pair of twelve year olds. They walked softly toward the first house. There were no lights on outside and all was dark except one lantern burning in the window. The snow had stopped. Silver gray smoke flowed from the chimney and hovered among the trees like a canopy. A huge Oak tree stood strong and tall in the front yard.

“Okay Bonnie, here’s the plan. Sneak to the porch, put the bag down and high tail it back to this tree. They won’t see us behind it. Go” Jimmy ran and Bonnie followed.

In a flash the two had placed the bags on the porch and ran back behind the Oak. Dogs began to bark, chickens scattered and the lantern began to move. The door opened and a young man in overalls stooped down to inspect the bags closer. From their vantage point behind the Oak tree they could see a small Christmas tree in the light of the fireplace. The man smiled, looked back over his shoulder and said, “Kids, Honey, come here. Looks like Santa has been here.”

Two children ran out on the porch in their pajamas and their mother came from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. “What in the world? What is it Jeremiah?” The mother could be heard over the giggling of the children and the hearty laughter of the man.

“It is Christmas. It sure is Christmas.” He looked around the yard and then looked up and smiled.

He picked up the two bags and went back into the house with the children jumping and giggling behind him. The door closed but Bonnie and Jimmy could still hear the joy filled laughter coming from the house as the family discovered the food and toys.

“Come on Bonnie. We need to make a run for it before they come out to see who left it.” Bonnie come.. Bonnie.. Are you crying again? Oh good heavens. Come on….. Come on.” Jimmy took her by the arm and ran back to his Mother.

Breathless they reached the car at the same time. Jumping in, getting a breath and talking at the same time they told Mrs. Godsey every detail of the mission.

“And I looked over and Bonnie was crying, again!” Jimmy explained.

“I was not, be quiet. Where are we going next Mrs. Godsey?”

“Just two more houses much like this one. We will do the same thing.”She cranked the car and proceeded down the dirt road.

The next house had more lights on inside so the two elves were more careful in their approach. This time the only place to hide being a ditch. Again they watched as the family realized someone cared. With priceless looks on their faces they knew God had heard and answered their prayers.

The last house was at the end of a long dark dirt road. Mrs. Godsey said, “We are going to leave four bags here. They need food. Jimmy I have two of your old coats in the trunk and two old pair of your shoes. We are going to leave those too. Each of you will have to carry two bags. I can help if you think it will be too much. The Harrington family lives here. Mr. Harrington was killed in the war. Since then Mrs. Harrington has tried to keep the farm going but they won’t be here next year. They are moving out to Texas to live with her family there. She just cannot work the farm and raise two children alone. They have nothing. Their clothes are ragged and worn. At least this will help them until they get with their family.” She leaned against the car and took Jimmy by the shoulders. Facing him she said.

 “Jimmy I need to talk to you son. I have put $22.95 in the bottom of one bag. It is what I had planned to spend on your rifle. I can take it out and buy you the rifle or I can leave it in there. It is up to you.”

“Give us each two bags Mother. We can carry them. Come on Bonnie. Let’s be really quiet this time. Bonnie, don’t tell me. You are crying.” Jimmy said as Bonnie hugged him.

“That is so sweet Jimmy. You are going to give up your Christmas present to…..” Before she could finish Jimmy shoved two bags in her arms and said, “Come on, and stop crying. Girls! I don’t know if it is all girls or just you Bonnie.”

They looked at Mrs. Godsey and she had tears flowing too.

“Oh! Come on. You too Mother?” The two began walking toward the house. Jimmy had to stop and blow his nose.

“Catching cold?” Bonnie laughed.

They placed the bags unnoticed and quickly slipped away.

The eight mile drive back home was quiet for a while. Then Mrs. Godsey began to sing, “Silent Night Holy Night” …. The kids joined in joyously aware they just grew up by a leap. 

“Look, it is snowing again. I think Jesus is smiling.” Mrs. Godsey exclaimed.

“I do too Mrs. Godsey, I do too.” Bonnie said softly, her heart full of love, thankful for the blessing.

Jimmy looked out the back car window gazing at the snow, he grinned and thought to himself, ‘I really am not going to miss getting the rifle this year.’ He turned around and said, “This is the best Christmas. It truly is better to give. Bonnie, stop crying, pleaseeeeeee.”

 I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.(Acts 20:35 KJV)

©2009 Angela Posey-Arnold

There is a sewage treatment plant in Harlem located under a state park. When David Dinkins was Mayor the project was supposed to be built in a different area, somewhere downtown near West 72nd St. Those is that area got together and rallied [...]]]>  

There is a sewage treatment plant in Harlem located under a state park. When David Dinkins was Mayor the project was supposed to be built in a different area, somewhere downtown near West 72^nd St. Those is that area got together and rallied against putting it in their neighborhood. As if by divine intervention a few years later they got blocked from the sun and the view of the Hudson by large condo buildings by Donald Trump. The measure to get the plant in Harlem passed before most of the residents knew it even existed. Once again what the people with money didn’t want in their neighborhoods the poor got in theirs. It wasn’t enough to put people in office who would look out for your interest, you had to be able to show them all your aces. And those aces were big bucks. Those with money are learning you can’t hide everything in the ghetto. So where do we put undesirables? And when are people in the most middle class American neighborhoods going to understand they have to share the responsibility of taking care of this land?

The escape to the suburbs was once part of the American Dream. Cities were rooted in too much chaos, not a good place to raise a family or be safe. The cities were where you found the drugs and the prostitution, where people went missing, where dreams unfurled. The goal was to get your family out of town as soon as possible, away from the poor and the needy. Away to better schools that would guarantee entrance to the Ivy League. Neighborhood associations worked together to demand more than clean lawns and well kempt facades. They worked to keep out those you attempted to leave behind in the city. But drugs became a popular part of the culture of relaxation for those of privilege. And there were people willing to pay a lot for sex with women they assumed were ‘clean’. Children started stealing from their parent’s wallets and medicine cabinets. The culture of the suburbs caved in on itself because those in the midst of the crisis refused to accept responsibility for what was going on around them. They blamed it on outside forces. They blamed it on the cities, especially the impoverished areas.

Perhaps that explanation is a bit simplified but there is a growing problem of feeling unsafe and insecure in this country. People can’t believe they worked so hard to get so far from the problems that they brought with them. So when a man goes into a school and starts shooting, a student decides to kill those who have mentally offended him, a mother decides to drown her children why do people still say they can’t believe its happening to their area?

Here’s something I have heard many times: “This never happened before they moved in”.

If you’re wondering who ‘they’ is, I’d say it’s probably the last person to enter the area no matter what the race or religion. There is always a ‘they’ because there is always a need to blame. If you are taking prescription drugs and your kids get to them, steal them, take them or sell them, why is it not your partially your fault? Did you bother to keep them in a secure place? Did you warn them not to take them?

If you know your child is a loner and you HOPE that he will make friends but you haven’t been in his room in a year except to get the dirty clothes, or you work all the time and don’t pay attention to him why is it not your fault when he blows away his classmates?

If you cheat on your spouse with prostitutes but you don’t go into the city what makes you better than any other John? The fact that you kept it in your town or neighborhood? Just like the drugs you score and bring back to suburbia to share with friends, it is not the fault of the city that there are drugs in your neighborhood. You made a choice to bring them there. It is your fault.

So when it is time to put a prison, a homeless shelter or even prisoners that caused 9/11 someplace why can’t your neighborhood be the chosen area? The area you live in suffers from as many adversities as the city but you probably have better means to combat the negative things that come from these outlets then those of less financial means. (Although right now most people in this country are of the same financial means- broke.)

For years the poor have labored with substandard living conditions because they did not have a voice in their own future. Parts of Louisiana are so environmentally unsound no one wants to live there- and it has nothing to with money. It has to do with what’s in the earth, in the air and in the water. Plants that emitted toxic everything survived there because the country was under the assumption that impoverished areas were out dumping grounds. We are like all the other countries in the world we chastise for their mistreatment of the poor.

If this is a country where all men are treated equal, then show it. Stop acting as if the poor are the reasons for all America’s problems. Perhaps if you had to live with all that is dumped on them you would change your attitude. But first accept responsibility for what goes on in your home and your area. Clean up your mess before you blame someone else.

The Wide and Wacky World of Sports

Nancy Pofahl

I like sports. My whole family does, save my daughter.  She’s the odd one.

When I was young, I loved to play tennis, volleyball, basketball or anything that involved [...]]]>  

The Wide and Wacky World of Sports

Nancy Pofahl

I like sports. My whole family does, save my daughter.  She’s the odd one.

When I was young, I loved to play tennis, volleyball, basketball or anything that involved guys crashing into girls. Especially the good looking guys that weren’t related to me. The exception of course was tennis- that involved me crashing into the net and faceplanting on the concrete.

I was fairly athletic and had a wicked hook shot in basketball that’s made me a legend with my son and all my nephews. I am only 5’4”, according to what I tell people. I could make my shot over people that were several heads taller, and from any distance and at any angle within twenty five feet of the net. I had extremely strong arms for a girl, probably from fighting with my sisters over clothes. Plus, I was too short to defend, especially against someone who wasn’t aware of my famous ability.  In the business we call that ‘hustling’.

I liked competition, and my sisters, brothers and myself used to compete for any number of things- dish duty, garbage duty, or just plain for the hell of it. Being the youngest of eight kids, I had to be athletic and fast, or else I’d probably not be alive today. Particularly when I did stupid things like play with my sisters’ makeup, or breaking my brothers’ model train set.

As I got older, we tried to emulate the Kennedy family by having family football or wiffle ball games. A wiffle ball, for those who don’t know, is a plastic ball full of holes. It is very lightweight, which is safer and much funnier to watch when there was large quantities of beer involved. And I mean lots of beer.

I fondly recall some of these games. Watching someone swing a bat who has had a few too many is hysterical. Usually the enebriated individual, sometimes me included, would keep swinging a good two or three hours after they’d already struck out.

Bystanders had to be careful not to be in the path of the bat. Fortunately, we used plastic bats with no real weight to them. I know this from experience when one of my sisters chased me around trying to smack me with it after I’d laughed at them for a bone-headed play.

On the topic of sisters, there is nothing more amazing or more comical than watching a woman afraid of breaking her nails try to catch a football. My sister, Sandy was the quinessioncial girly girl. She never wore tennis shoes, always sandles to show off her latest pedicure.  When she played football, she would twist around, putting her body through contorsions that Hudini would have admired to try to catch the football with just her arms. Unfortunately, her face took the brunt of it more often than not. She shook it off, though. Girly girl or not, my sister was no wuss.

I used to like motor sports when I was young. Motorcycle racing was a blast, as was stock car racing. I would go to either and came home equally covered in mud. I had my favorite drivers and riders and would always try to get them to wave to me as they went by. When they did, I was thrilled. I would hang around with the motorcross riders after a race and enjoy the carnival like atmosphere. My whole family was usually there with me, and one of our close friends was a racer. I got addicted to it and used to off-road motorcycles for sport. This inevitably led to the time I got to kiss a cactus.

I was in New Mexico with my brother-in-law, and we took the day to ride in a hilly, desert area outside of Roswell. We had the standard safety equipment with us- a helmet and a case of beer, which worked well for both courage and anesthesia.  I, unfamiliar with the course, was flying along up and down those hills when suddenly, down turned into way, way down.

This was followed by very loud and inventive cursing unsuitable for a general audience.

I had driven off of a sheer, ten foot drop, straight into a cactus.  My brother-in-law started laughing is butt off. He said I had looked like a superhero flying through the air. The bike went one way and I went the other into the large and painful plant. I felt like I was in a Roadrunner cartoon.

Fortunately, the damage was light. Thank God I only broke off a piece of the fender on the bike.  Oh, and I had some bruises and a few broken ribs. I could have broken my entire body, but didn’t. I should have hit my head instead of my ribs, it’s as hard as a rock. I had a helmet with a visor on, which kept my face from turning into soup.  Kids, the lesson here is to always wear safety equipment, sans the beer, and for God’s sake, don’t try this at home.

Of course, when my family and I aren’t partaking in dangerous contact sports, we watch them. We routinely gather together in someone’s living room to yell at the TV and each other. It’s a great stress reliever. And if our team loses, it’s ok. We got to yell for three hours or so and end up too tired and hoarse to react to losing. And besides, there is always tomorrow, next week or next year for them to become victorious again.

I understand the basics of most sports. My personal favorites to watch are football, hockey and baseball. It used to be more fun, however, when the players were not paid the same as the fiscal budget for the entire U.S. Government’s spending programs.

In football, hockey and boxing, the players give up their personal health to play the game. So I guess I can see a large salary there. It’s like the old gladiator games from the Roman era.  Although now, humans choose to beat each other senseless just to try to be a winner.  To try to be the strongest and the fastest and the meanest.

Those who don’t participate tend to enjoy watching those people beat each other senseless. They get their hunger for healthy competition and violence fulfilled without ever having to leave their easy chair, or seat in the stands.

Women are now more involved with sports than ever. We are right next to the men shouting for our team’s victory. Men don’t mind because we bring food, and they think woman who are into sports are sexy. We have decided to enjoy seeing people beating each other senseless for the good of the cause, winning.

I once went to a women’s football game. There does happen to be a league for women, but they are not well advertised. You want to talk about viciousness and blood letting, and that was just during the National Anthem! But I’ll tell you, these women were every bit as skilled as the men, and had twice the passion with maybe a tenth of the pay. That holds true for most women’s professional sports.

Baseball is typically a gentler sport. They do beat each other senseless, but that’s outside the rules of the game. Being a Milwaukee native, I loved watching the Brewers play at the old County Stadium. Yelling and screaming with the fans, eating a hot dog meant for the guy down the aisle, and drinking an ice cold beer on a hot summer day.  Pure extacy, though nowadays the price for concessions are so inflated, you practically have to take a loan out to afford them.

Still, it does not cost as much to watch baseball as it does some other sports. And the players usually are gorgeous creatures with faces not broken and battered, or covered in a protective mask. Truthfully, that was always my main motivation to go to games. Sometimes it just doesn’t get much better than that.

I always wanted to catch a ball. My husband actually did once and gave it to our son when he was still just a little guy. He was five years old, and I remember looking down into his wide, blue eyes that were so excited and so happy, and decided right there that I would always love baseball, if only for this moment.

We got some players to sign it after the game.  That was even more thrilling for him.

My son was born the year the Brewers went to the World Series. He was one and a half months old, and we had the cutest little Brewers outfit for him, hat and all.  We still have a photo floating around here somewhere of him wearing it. He was born to love baseball.

I remember going to a popular local sports bar in downtown Milwaukee one night after a Milwaukee Bucks basketball  game. There were players from our team in the bar, and I believe height-wise I came up to their shin. One accidentally stepped on me, and he felt so bad about it, he took a plastic souvenir cup from behind the bar and had his teammates sign it. Again, too cool.

But that was twenty five years ago. I wonder if today’s players would have the same respect for their fans?

Speaking of fans, I am a huge one of the Green Bay Packers. I remember the years they went to the Super Bowl. All four of them, though the first two was when I was only seven and eight.

The last two required mass family gatherings every weekend they played from the last game of the regular season all the way through the playoffs.

The local media went crazy, and all the TV stations had round the clock coverage of our heros’ every move. The anticipation and hope built with each victory. And then then, at last, the final contest.  The chance to be the best of the best.

When they won in ’97, tears flowed and so did the champagne. We got an early start the next day buying all the Superbowl winner t-shirts and hats we could find.

I don’t recall many positive events to have ever drawn so much emotion and so much commotion as when one of our local teams make it to the big show. People become united in an endless well of team pride, and even non-sports fans get into the spirit. Fans scream, “we’re number one!” on sidewalks and porches. Cars honk their horn as they drive by. People stream into any public place that offer a chance to celebrate with their fellow fans.  For a while, we connect with our community a little more than usual, and we all become a little friendlier.  Nothing wrong with that.

Nowadays, the only sport I play is trying to get to my chair before my cat does.  I am older and a lot slower now, so she usually wins. But when I turn on the television and see my favorite teams playing, it brings me back to my youth. To warm, sunny afternoons with a football or a wiffle ball game with my family.  To the weekends and the gatherings and the food, and the laughing and the shouting, and yes, sometimes the crying.  Whether you’re a player or a fan, sports bring people together in a way very unique from anything else.

Carl Jung

Now here is another brain teaser for your therapist, or should I say mind teaser, the notion of curing someone with depression. Sadly, this is one of the most common causes of problems in marriages, and while we look for help from the professionals they take advantage of that vulnerability [...]]]>

Carl Jung

Now here is another brain teaser for your therapist, or should I say mind teaser, the notion of curing someone with depression. Sadly, this is one of the most common causes of problems in marriages, and while we look for help from the professionals they take advantage of that vulnerability with a platform that doesn’t get to the root causes of depression. All the while, we spend about $12 billion a year on therapy and $15 billion on pharmacology drugs to treat “mental illnesses”, particularly depression.

I even find it hilarious that there is an ad on TV promoting a drug called Abilify that begins by stating that 2/3rds of people suffering from depression still have depression symptoms after taking traditional “medicine”, in essence admitting the inability of the medical approach to curing people. After all, our “mental illnesses” are biologically based, hence the medical approach to a “cure”, and there is really nothing that can be done mentally.

But there was a psychologist who actually did cure people, the one-time heir apparent to Freud by the name of Carl Jung. I refer to Jung as the greatest psychologist who ever lived basically because of the fact that his objective was to cure his patients.

Let me relate to you one of his patients whom he did cure, a patient suffering from depression. Ironically, the professionals of his day actually diagnosed her with Schizophrenia. Boy I can imagine the response from the professionals if I would have titled this post “Curing Schizophrenia”, because as most people realize after 100 years of propagating the biology conclusion, Schizophrenia is incurable.

The discovery of a cure for schizophrenia

Jung describes in his autobiography the first case where he cured a patient in the story of a woman who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. “I still recollect very well a case which greatly interested me at the time. A young woman had been admitted to the hospital, suffering from ‘melancholia.’ The examination was conducted with the usual care: anamnesis (recollection of the past), tests, physical check-ups, and so on. The diagnosis was schizophrenia…The prognosis poor.”

“This woman happened to be in my section. At first I did not dare to question the diagnosis. I was still a young man then, a beginner, and would not have had the temerity to suggest another one. And yet the case struck me as strange. I had the feeling that it was not a matter of schizophrenia but of ordinary depression, and resolved to apply my own method. At the time I was much occupied with diagnostic association studies, and so I undertook an association experiment with the patient. In addition, I discussed her dreams with her. In this way I succeeded in uncovering her past, which anamnesis had not clarified. I obtained information directly from the unconscious, and this information revealed a dark and tragic story.

Before the woman married she had known a man, the son of a wealthy industrialist, in whom all the girls of the neighborhood were interested. Since she was very pretty, she thought her chances of catching him were fairly good. But apparently he did not care for her, and so she married another man.

Five years later an old friend visited her. They were talking over old times, and he said to her, ‘When you got married it was quite a shock to someone-your Mr. X’ (the wealthy industrialist’s son). That was the moment! Her depression dated from this period, and several weeks later led to a catastrophe. She was bathing her children, first her four-year-old girl and then her two-year-old son. She lived in a country where the water supply was not perfectly hygienic; there was pure spring water for drinking, and tainted water from the river for bathing and washing. While she was bathing the little girl, she saw the child sucking at the sponge, but did not stop her. She even gave her little son a glass of the impure water to drink. Naturally, she did this unconsciously, or only half consciously, for her mind was already under the shadow of the incipient depression.

A short time later, after the incubation period had passed, the girl came down with typhoid fever and died. The girl had been her favorite. The boy was not infected. At that moment the depression reached its acute stage, and the woman was sent to the institution.

From the association test I had seen that she was a murderess, and I had learned many of the details of her secret. It was at once apparent that this was a sufficient reason for her depression. Essentially it was a psychogenic disturbance and not a case of schizophrenia.

Now what could be done in the way of therapy? Up to then the woman had been given narcotics to combat her insomnia and had been under guard to prevent attempts at suicide. But otherwise nothing had been done. Physically, she was in good condition.

I was confronted with the problem: Should I speak openly with her or not? Should I undertake the major operation? I was faced with a conflict of duties altogether without precedent in my experience. I had a difficult question of conscience to answer, and had to settle the matter with myself alone. If I had asked my colleagues, they would probably have warned me, ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t tell the woman any such thing. That will only make her still crazier.’ To my mind, the effect might well be the reverse. In general it may be said that unequivocal rules scarcely exist in psychology. A question can be answered one way or another, depending on whether or not we take the unconscious factors into account. Of course I knew very well the personal risk I was running: if the patient got worse, I would be in the soup too!

Nevertheless, I decided to take a chance on a therapy whose outcome was uncertain. I told her everything I had discovered through the association test. I can easily be imagined how difficult it was for me to do this. To accuse a person point-blank of murder is no small matter. And it was tragic for the patient to have to listen to it and accept it. But the result was that in two weeks it proved possible to discharge her, and she was never again institutionalized.”

Wow!! He was able to cure schizophrenia. But he had to be careful about how he handled the fact that he had found a cure. “While I was still at the clinic, I had to be most circumspect about treating my schizophrenic patients, or I would have been accused of woolgathering. Schizophrenia was considered incurable. If one did achieve some improvement with a case of schizophrenia, the answer was that it had not been real schizophrenia.”

Now there are a couple of interesting elements to this story. First is Jung’s use of the word murder to describe the experience. Common sense would tell us today this was simply an accident, for it is obvious by the impact it had on the woman that she did not want to kill her little girl, her actions were driven by an unconscious drive. Our legal system today defines murder as a conscious act. In fact, the objective of psychology in the legal system is to determine whether the cause of the criminal act was a conscious or an unconscious one. That is why it is call “premeditated”.

But for Jung what was important was the impact the behavior had within the psyche of his patient. What is important is how the psyche views an act that it was responsible for, and unconsciously the woman did see the little girl drink the water, which she knew was not clean. Jung’s objective as he states is to “undertake the major operation” of removing the cancer of this experience from her psyche, getting her to the point of realizing that it wasn’t her fault, and if she forgives herself then she can eradicate the experience from her psychic life. And it worked!!! He was able to cure a woman who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Which leads us to the other point, and that is the ethical problem that is faced with the notion that there is a root cause behind our psychic imbalances. Behind every negative experience there is the other side of the story. Something had to have gone wrong for the impact to be so large as to cause a mental problem. So you have to take into consideration there was a negative behavior that caused the mental problem in the first place. If your objective is to find fault then you cannot get to the truth.

If Jung had not realized he was not judging the woman but trying to help then he would not have pursued the path to the cure, the solution. With rape, for example, the point is to cure the patient not convict the rapist from the perspective of the person who got raped, because the point is eradicating the psychological impact on the person who got raped. Of course, society and morality dictates the rapist is responsible for his actions but the point here is the psychological impact on the person who was raped.

Hypnosis is another good therapy technique for remembering past negative experiences but is not widely used because of the potential for suggestion and because once something is revealed that is negative we feel we have to convict the negative behavior, not cure the patient. I saw a case once on T.V. where through hypnosis a therapist was able to determine that a father had raped his daughter. Now if this were true then the point should have been to cure the girl of the mental response to this experience. But what did the therapist decide to do? Go public with the diagnosis. Yes, they tried to convict the father until it was determined the therapist put the notion that the girl was raped into her head during hypnosis. Again, the question is faultfinding versus problem solving. Psychological health occurs when we confront our demons, but the point is not to find fault with the cause of our problems.

There is one more significant point to this story. Therapy today is passive, where the therapist guides the patients through their negative emotions. Again, the “how does that make you feel” question. While what is true about therapy is the patient is responsible for affecting his or her own cure, this path implies the notion that the therapist cannot present the thoughts behind the problem because then the patient doesn’t make the discovery on his or her own. Jung’s approach was the opposite, in that he introduced the thoughts behind the problem, not the feelings.

Hiding the discovery

And how did Jung respond to curing his patient. He had to keep it quiet for fear of the response of his peers. “There were other reasons that caused me to say nothing to my colleagues about this case. I was afraid of their discussing it and possibly raising legal questions. Nothing could be proved against the patient, of course, and yet such a discussion might have had disastrous consequences for her. Fate had punished her enough! It seemed to me more meaningful that she should return to life in order to atone in life for her crime. When she was discharged, she departed bearing her heavy burden. She had to bear this burden. The loss of the child had been frightful for her, and her expiation had already begun with the depression and her confinement to the institution.”

And the source of the trauma was lost love.

No one has ever died for slaying their dragons, but a lot have for not…it’s called suicide.

by Tim Kellis

http://HappyRelationships.com/

http://HappyMarriages.com/

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

by Stephen Sangirardi  Bard715@aol.com

In Patchogue, Long Island, I must have been about six, I was eating dinner with family—aunts, uncles, and cousins—inside of our huge screened-in porch during the yearly vacation in July. For the five families there were five bungalows. I don’t recall how it started, but some kid from [...]]]> Forgiveness

by Stephen Sangirardi  Bard715@aol.com

In Patchogue, Long Island, I must have been about six, I was eating dinner with family—aunts, uncles, and cousins—inside of our huge screened-in porch during the yearly vacation in July. For the five families there were five bungalows. I don’t recall how it started, but some kid from across Swan Road had been eyeing my bicycle all week. He was younger and smaller than me, so I didn’t need my older cousins for protection. I could handle the matter myself. While we ate, I sat close to the screen door for purposes of egress, and I had left my bicycle unguarded on the gravel road just beyond the porch to allure him. I wanted the boy to hop on my bike. I wanted an excuse to punish him. Sure enough, halfway through our meal, he approached the forbidden fruit. Biding my time and watching him inch closer and closer to the trap, I quietly put my corn-on-the cob onto my plate and crisscrossed the knife and fork. The adults were busy having another one of their loud discussions about the State of the Union, and my cousins were preoccupied with dramas of their own.
   The kid from across the road seized the bait.
   He started to ride my bike that had recently molted its training wheels. I dashed from the table, and before anyone could stop me from leaping down the bungalow stairs, I pushed the smiling kid off my bike and he went flying. His scream of pain drew the attention of especially my mother who came running out, still clad in her bathing suit from the afternoon’s swim. The kid looked up at me, his elbows scraped, and cried, “Why did you do that? Why did you do that?” The look in his eyes, defenseless, has gripped me until this day like a continuous cartwheel of surprise. I felt, shall we say, terrible, when I saw him lying there in pain, in his sailboat tee-shirt and Keds sneakers that his mom had dressed him in, crying, questioning me as though I were his older brother and put on this earth to protect him, not to hurt him. I felt so terrible that I really didn’t feel the slap across my face that my20mother gave me. I felt so terrible that I really didn’t hear her scolding me for being such a selfish baby; so horrible that I really didn’t see my aunts tut-tutting at me from the table or my cousins laughing at me because I had gotten slapped before the sun went down; so guilty I couldn’t enjoy the scent of brine that came off the bay; so sinful when I saw that little boy crying and rubbing his eyes and still wondering why I did to him what I had done, as my mother picked him up, and my Uncle Jimmy who had followed her path gave him a red lollipop( the best color in the world ). That night, I felt unworthy of my skin, yet I somehow twisted and turned to sleep. The next morning I let Albie–he had the perfectly pathetic name–ride my bike as much as he wished and I told him he could punch me in the stomach if he’d like, but not the face. Instead, he wanted to shake my hand and that of course made me feel ten times worse. That afternoon, when a bunch of us piled into the back of Uncle Johnny’s station wagon to jump off the dock into the Great South Bay, I was glad to see that it was low tide. Because that’s when you had to watch out for crabs scuttling on the bottom of the hidden sand. I wanted to step on a crab. I wanted to be pinched for pushing Albie off my bike, and O how happy I was when a crab put its claw on the big toe of my right foot, and before I could pull it off, I “ouchedD for the Sound to hear.
   The Buddha was right. There is no substitute for universal compassion. On behalf of our race, I seek forgiveness for every child pushed off a bike or shot in the street.

Greetings to you, my charge, in the name of The Lord our God and Creator Who lovingly assigned me to you. I am always happy when God sends me to do something really important in your life. Great joy filled my soul last week when I intervened [...]]]> A Letter from Your Guardian Angel

Greetings to you, my charge, in the name of The Lord our God and Creator Who lovingly assigned me to you. I am always happy when God sends me to do something really important in your life. Great joy filled my soul last week when I intervened in the car accident you almost had. You knew it was me, didn’t you? You felt the brush of my wings.

There are just a few things we need to clear up. I suppose it is odd for you to get a letter from me, your Guardian Angel, but I can’t wait any longer to serve this message to you.

I bring glorious good tidings of great joy. I know you can’t see me but you know I am there. Remember when your grandmother passed away and you felt my presence? Yes, that was me, sent by God to comfort and protect you. I am always with you. I am in the cool breeze on a hot day, the glint of light in the dark night and the comfort you feel while you praise Him.

I want you to know I am not in the little golden pin you see on lapels throughout your culture. I am surely not a trumpet toting porcelain figurine on the coffee table. I am a messenger and a protector for
you. Everything I do is by command of God.

I am very old according to your standards and I have been there with you through every trial and every joy. I was there to hear your borning cry and I will be there the day you leave earth. I am fascinated with
you and the relationship you have with Jesus, it is really awesome.

Sometimes I ponder as you go about your daily business if you really know me or what it is you think of me. I am concerned that you truly must understand who I am and why God created me. I want you to
know God’s truth about angels. I want you to know me because I will be a part of your eternal environment.

I am eternal and I am always pointing you in the right direction-toward God. Remember how we sang when Jesus was born. We were pointing you to Him then and every Christmas since.

As an angel I already know the fullness of heaven. Someday, my beloved, you will experience it with me.

Angels do God’s perfect will and we do so gladly. You can find everything you need to know about me in God’s Holy Word. Don’t pray to me, pray to Him. Worship Him, we do. God is sovereign and only He is worthy of worship. And for heaven’s sake don’t set me up as an idol. Talk about uncomfortable—that really gets under my wings. I am just a ministering spirit sent by God to serve the redeemed.

Some humans see us from time to time and some do not. As wonderful as it would be to be visible in your presence God has given you something better. He has given you the greatest gift of all. His absolute presence through His Holy Spirit.

I am far more involved in your world than you realize. That is why I am writing these letters. I want you know me and the amazing things God’s Word tells you about me and my kind. God is not One to waste Bible space on things that are not important. He wants you to know who we are and what we do. Reading His Word will bring you closer to Him, and that is what I want for you. His Word has over 300 references to my kind. He created us for very special purposes. We get the big jobs and we are
constantly at work.

Just think of some of the things we have done that are recorded in Scripture. The birth of John the Baptist was proclaimed by an angel to John’s father, Zacharias, much to his surprise. When the angel told Zacharias that he and Elizabeth would have a child well after their childbearing years, Zacharias doubted it could be so. The angel had to act quickly and caused him to be mute so he didn’t spoil the entire thing. That was one of our biggest accomplishments recorded in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 1. Not only did the angel have the task of foretelling John’s birth but that he would be the forerunner of the Messiah. What a message that was!

The announcement to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus was made by no ordinary angel. Only the angel Gabriel could carry out such a task. Gabriel is a high ranking archangel and one of only three whose names have been given to you in Scripture.

Joseph, the husband of Mary, found himself in a difficult situation. He was legally engaged to a pregnant woman who said she had been impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Joseph was thinking seriously about running for the hills. Matthew 1:20 tells that while he thought on these things an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him the truth about Mary. The angel told Joseph Who Jesus was and that “He shall save His people from their sins”.

Long before Zacharias, Mary and Joseph the angel Gabriel came to the prophet Daniel. While Daniel was praying Gabriel appeared to him and testified to the coming Messiah.

All of these assignments were major task, all pointing the way to Jesus. And when Jesus was crucified and buried in the tomb, we were the ones who had the incredible privilege of rolling the stone away.

What a joyous message we brought that day, He is not here, He is risen!!!

God uses us as much today as He did then. We have never stopped working for the redeemed. Angels don’t preach, we bring messages and assist those who do carry the gospel. Look how we helped Paul and Peter. We continue to do the same today. There are millions and trillions of testimonies to our work with missionaries and with those who carry the gospel to the lost.

One last thing before I close, when you die you will not be an angel. You will still be the redeemed. You will have songs to sing that we can’t sing, but I will be there to rejoice with you. I will be there when you pass from time to eternity.

 Remember the story of the blind beggar, Lazarus? We carried him to heaven, and we will carry you, too.

I love Matthew 25:31 “when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him,” Actually, I can’t wait for this day and we are in constant preparation. You should be too.

In closing, my beloved, remember to worship and pray to God. Only the Creator is worthy of worship, not the created. Prepare for the coming again of your Savior Jesus Christ and listen to the Holy Spirit within you. I will be with you. I think you are wonderful.

Angel kisses from heaven,

Your Guardian Angel

^i^