Some Peeks in Edmonds, Washington
You would love Edmonds, Washington.
It is a picturesque village. Along Main Street, and Fifth Avenue there are corner gardens, maintained by the city. This year, they are planted primarily with white flowers, big, fluffy flowers which make all the other flowers POP! with color. Overhead, from the lamp posts, are huge hanging baskets, full of a variety of plants, mostly purples, blues and fuchsias. The overall effect is stunning.
On our way to her manicure-pedicure, I drove Mom around looking at the sights. Down at the Edmonds Beach, I was shocked to see an eagle, perched on a piling. The shot isn’t very good, I jumped out of the car in a hurry and snapped, not taking enough time, but I was so surprised – I had never seen an eagle there before.
After lunch, as we headed out, we saw people touching up one of the murals Edmonds has painted on the sides of buildings there:
Here is another one, nearby:
I love it that this sweet little town, with its ferry coming faithfully in and out, preserves its identity and character in the face of changing times.
Eid Mubarak 2013!
May all your fasting and sacrifices be acceptable! May you receive the blessings of this long, very hot month of Ramadan! May you and your family have peace and the blessings of love, understanding and abundance!
Family Culture Early Rising
There are some great things about being with family. You know how things are done. You know what people mean when they say things. You exchange ‘looks.’
When I am with my family, there are some funny things that make me feel at home. Both my sisters have smashing views, one looking southeast at Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier and the other at Puget Sound and the Olympics. Growing up on the side of a mountain with a view of water, game and mountains, it just feels ‘right.’ Not a lot of mountains in Florida to build a house on the side of. Or to view . . . sigh.
Staying at my sister’s house, I was the last one up. My body time was two hours earlier then all of theirs, but I was the last one up. They are early-to-rise people. I totally love it – for so many years, I’ve been an early riser living in countries where the day starts around noon and runs well past midnight . . . especially during Ramadan. In Kuwait, I took photos of the sunrises for this blog; my friends told me it was the only sunrise they ever saw, LOL.
Being around other early risers – aw, what a joy. As I left the house for the airport, Little Diamond was already up eating breakfast and I was able to hug her one last time before departing.
The photo above is the view of the I-90 bridge crossing Lake Washington in a cool, breezy pre-dawn.
Non-Essential State Department Personnel Ordered to Leave Yemen
I know, I know, it is not a funny headline. But here is the thing. People have egos. You might wonder why anyone would stay in the face of a threat so grave. It isn’t by coincidence that so many prisoners were busted out of prison – hundreds in Iraq, in Yemen, also if I remember correctly, in Pakistan.
These countries, under international understandings and agreements, provide security for one another’s embassies. Like WE provide security for the Saudi and the Yemeni and French diplomats in the United States. When a country suffers massive prison breaks, it is only prudent to wonder how well they might be able to protect international diplomats – it’s all security.
But – and here is why a very serious headline can make me laugh so early in the morning – who wants to be “non-essential?” I’ve lived through similar situations; people want to think themselves important – you would be surprised how many people will choose to stay, knowing the dangers, because they want to consider themselves “mission-essential”. 🙂
WASHINGTON — The State Department on Tuesday ordered non-essential personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen to leave the country following the threat by al-Qaida that has triggered temporary shutdowns of 19 American diplomatic posts across the Middle East and Africa.
The department said in a travel warning that it had ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from Yemen “due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks” and said U.S. citizens in Yemen should leave immediately because of an “extremely high” security threat level.
“As staff levels at the Embassy are restricted, our ability to assist U.S. citizens in an emergency and provide routine consular services remains limited and may be further constrained by the fluid security situation,” the travel warning said.
The U.S. Embassy is located in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.
The State Department on Sunday closed a total of 19 diplomatic posts until next Saturday. They include posts in Bangladesh and across North Africa and the Middle East as well as East Africa, including Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius.
This is only an excerpt from AOL/Huffpost World News where you can read the rest of the story by clicking the blue type here.
Breath of Fresh Air in Seattle
Miss me?
I’ve been in Seattle for a truly grand event, my Mother’s 90th Birthday. She was queen for almost a week, with visitors and well wishers and a smashing party with friends and family and faces she has known and loved for years – many many people.
When I arrived in Seattle it was cool and cloudy and everyone told me how sad it was that I had missed the glorious weather they have had for weeks. Coming in from the airport I was shocked to see all the scorched grass; it looked more like California than green green Seattle.
I wasn’t sad to miss the warm sunshine at all. I have all of that I need in Pensacola. What I loved, from the moment I arrived, was the fresh air.
Seattle smells good. Seattle smells like mown grass, and flowers, lush flowers everywhere. Youcan drive with your windows open. I slept with my window open, and when it got COLD in the middle of the night, I used a BLANKET! This is the best luxury for me, cool weather, fresh air, cool breezes, even a little thunder and lightning and rain.
The days were warm and sunny, and the nights were cool and fresh. I was in heaven.
It wasn’t that I forgot about you – I have all kinds of material – but blogging with the iPad just doesn’t work for me. It’s fine for picking up e-mail and checking the news and playing a game or two, but it isn’t a real computer, with real capabilities. If blogging gets to technical, I’m not going to do it, life is too short. I love WordPress for making life so easy, making it so easy to put in all the photos I want, easy easy easy. I just had too much going on, and didn’t have time to fiddle. The iPad just doesn’t do it for me. I wish I had a computer small enough to just stuff in my purse like the iPad, I wish I didn’t have to pull the computer out of my purse, like the iPad. The iPad is convenient, better than slogging a lot of books on the plane with me, but . . . What I really want is an iPad sized computer . . .
Home again, on the flight in the pilots must have mentioned the heat and humidity in Pensacola six times. Ahhh . . . .for those sweet cool breezes and cool nights . . .
Worse Than Crack Cocaine? Growing up Poor
From AOL Daily Finance Poverty damages children more than being born to a crack addicted mother. Poverty keeps children from attaining their full potention, and hurts us all as a society as a huge waste of potential resource:
In the 1980s, the crack baby epidemic was hard to ignore. Television show after television show, article after article proclaimed that children born to addicts of the increasingly prevalent “crack” cocaine were all-but-guaranteed to have birth defects, including extremely low IQs and severe emotional problems. This “lost generation,” commentators emphasized, would be incapable of forming relationships or reaching full emotional maturity. They would be, in the words of Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, condemned to “a life of certain suffering, of probable deviance, of permanent inferiority.”
A little over 20 years later, Krauthammer’s predictions have proven almost embarrassingly inaccurate. Last week, the findings of a 24-year-long study of crack babies revealed that parental use of the drug had little or no direct effect on the children. In the process of investigating the babies, however, researchers discovered another environmental problem that did, in fact, lead to problems with depression, anxiety, cognitive functioning, and a host of other issues: poverty.
In 1989, Dr. Hallam Hurt, chair of the neonatology department at Philadelphia’s Albert Einstein Medical Center, began tracking 224 near-term or full-term children who were born to crack addicts. In the ensuing years, her longitudinal study followed the children, finding that, overall, their IQs were about the same as a control group of children of non-addicted mothers. Further, the children in Hurt’s study had comparable outcomes when it came to educational and emotional development.
That having been said, Hurt’s study found that children raised in poverty — regardless of whether or not their mothers were addicted to crack — tended to have lower IQs and lower school readiness than those who weren’t raised in poverty. A big part of the problem, she argues, is environmental: Of the children in her study, “81 percent of the children had seen someone arrested; 74 percent had heard gunshots; 35 percent had seen someone get shot; and 19 percent had seen a dead body outside.” The children themselves acknowledged the effect of these events: “Those children who reported a high exposure to violence were likelier to show signs of depression and anxiety and to have lower self-esteem.”
In other words, while prenatal crack abuse may not have a major effect on children, the societal conditions in crack-ravaged communities most certainly do. As Hurt emphasized, “Given what we learned, we are invested in better understanding the effects of poverty. How can early effects be detected? Which developing systems are affected? And most important, how can findings inform interventions for our children?” Or, to put it another way, now that we understand that poverty is more dangerous for children than crack, what can we do to protect our children from its effects?
In Florida, the worst schools are those serving the poor. Many fell a full grade point in the Florida evaluations and would have fallen further if there were not a law – I am not kidding – that says they can only fall one grade point in a year. We are failing in the two most important areas that can help children pull themselves out of poverty – good health care, and good education.
Zemar Stranded in the Philippines!
LOL, I don’t have any friends named Zemar, and “all” she needs is $2550 wired to her as soon as possible!
Good morning,
I Hope you get this on time. I’m very sorry to bother you with my troubles but I’m in some terrible situation right now and need your urgent help, I know I didn’t mention anything about it to you but we are in trouble right now.
I’m stranded in Manila City, Philippines and need your help getting back home. I made a trip down here this past weekend but unfortunately for me, I was robbed at gunpoint at a taxi park. Everything I had on me including my phone, credit cards were all stolen, It was a terrible experience to go through but looking on the bright side, I wasn’t seriously hurt or injured and I’m still alive which is the most important thing. The good thing is that I still have my passport but I just don’t have enough money to sort my hotel bills and travel back home.
Unfortunately for me, I can’t have access to funds without my credit card since the robbers have my card now, I’ve made contact with my bank but it would take at least a week to get a new one to me. Please I would really appreciate if you could help me out here. I was wondering if you could help me with a quick Loan and I promise to refund you as I get back in two days time. All I really need is about $2,550 but if the whole amount can’t be covered, I would gladly appreciate any amount you can put in to help. Western union is the best way to get the funds to me. Please kindly let me know if this is possible so that I can provide my wiring details needed to make the transfer. Looking forward to hearing from you, I will check my email every 30 minutes for your reply because it’s the only way i can reach you.
Thank you
Zemar
FBI Operation Cross Country Rescues 105 Child Victims
From AOL News/Huffington Post:
The FBI has rescued 105 child sex-trafficking victims, FBI Assistant Director Ronald Hosko announced Monday.
The youngest of the rescued children was 9 years old, according to Reuters.
One underage victim told officials she became involved with prostitution when she was 11, according to CNN.
“Many times the children that are taken in in these types of criminal activities are children that are disaffected, they are from broken homes, they may be on the street themselves,” FBI Acting Executive Assistant Director Kevin Perkins said, according to the network. “They are really looking for a meal, they are looking for shelter, they are looking for someone to take care of them.”
Another victim, identified as “Alex,” told interviewers she became a prostitute at the age of 16, when she felt she had no other options to feed and clothe herself.
“At first it was terrifying,” Alex told interviewers, “and then you just kind of become numb to it. You put on a whole different attitude—like a different person. It wasn’t me. I know that. Nothing about it was me.”
The raids also resulted in the arrests of 150 “pimps” and other individuals, according to an FBI press release.
The rescues were the product of Operation Cross Country, a three-day nationwide initiative to aid victims of underage prostitution.
Operation Cross Country is a part of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, a joint program by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created to fight child sex trafficking in the United States.
Since 2003, the Innocence Lost National Initiative has netted the rescue of more than 2,700 children.
Uwem Akpan and Say You’re One of Them
This is a very troubling book, and, for me, a difficult book to read. It has taken me weeks, and I will admit I have often interrupted the reading of it to read other, easier books. This book makes me very uncomfortable. The stories and images trouble my sleep.
Uwem Akpan is of the tribe of Annang, from Nigeria, and has committed to an even larger tribe, the Catholic Church, of which he is a priest, and this gives him a unique perspective. The stories in this book often focus on tribal differences, including religious differences, and although they are set in different African states, have parallels in lives lived elsewhere. Those tribal differences are between Moslem and Christian, but also between Pentecostal and Catholic, Tutsi and Hutu, and, most significantly, the differences between to tribe of the very poor and the very rich.
Each story is told through the eyes of a child living in a different African state – Kenya, Benin, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda.
In one of my favorite segments of the book, strife has broken out in Nigeria, strife between the Moslems and the Christians, but also throw in the Pentecostals and the Pagans and really mix it up. A bus is waiting in the bus station to take people back to the southern part of Nigeria, and on this bus is a young man, half Moslem, half Christian. The bus stands idle for hours, while the bus driver seeks fuel to make the trip. During this time on the bus, many conversations take place, and what I loved was how alliances shifted with each conversation. The people on the bus were from different traditions, but came together as a community. No community is without arguments and dissensions, however, and consensus builds, diminishes, shifts – it is a microcosm of the tensions and stressors pulling apart the Nigerian nation state.
Uwem Akpan treats the children in each story lovingly, treasuring their innocent perspective and the sweetness of their hearts and vision. The adults don’t come off so well, passing their days in drug-induced stupors, drunk, selling children into slavery and prostitution, chopping off their limbs with machetes, and closing themselves off into groups which protect themselves and exploit others.
It would be an easier book to read if it were about aliens, or if these stories were confined to Africa, but the stories of these abused, neglected and exploited children echo in every continent, country and city in the world.
Uwem Akpan writes prose that is poetry; the surroundings are described with such detail that you feel in the moment, you see through the eyes of each child, and you see things that are beautiful as well as scenes you did not want to see. As you can see, I have a lot of ambiguous feelings about this book. At the same time I can admire the writing, the stories have left images in my mind that cannot be erased. Dark images. There is hope in the persistence and resilience of many of the children, but concern about their long term survival. It leaves a heavy weight on my heart.
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