TToT: Lightbulbs and Lightning Strikes, #LookBackMarchForward #10Thankful

January isn’t making anything easy on me, but it too shall pass.

Somehow, I’ve had Billie Holiday on my mind as this month stretches on, painfully on and on.

Ten Things of Thankful

I’m thankful for the never ending list of ideas that come to me, as potential topics to write about.

Writer’s block, no way, at least not in the usual way of things.

When I am given the job of writing something, I may get a block, but that’s more from my fear of not being able to do the job I was asked to do, not being good enough.

I’m thankful for a return to my writing group in 2018.

It was a difficult day/week/month, but those people are there for me.

I wrote about a young woman, musician, who was hearing the news that Kurt Cobain had died, and wondering how to navigate the perils of fame.

It is a question on my mind. The group listened to my clumsy story and seemed curious, as curious as I am about what I’ve been thinking since I heard Dolores O’Riordan was gone.

I did smile and even laugh, with my group of local writer friends. Worth it.

I’m thankful for a list of tough questions to answer, to better know myself.

I am a writer, but I have a lot to learn. Sometimes, it requires that I look deep into myself, to find the truth. Otherwise, my writing will not keep on the forward momentum I hope to have.

It’s hard work, difficult and painful and sensitive stuff, but I am determined to see things more clearly on the other side.

I’m thankful for a first successful meeting of
The Canadian Federation of the Blind,
Ontario, in 2018.

I’m thankful for a contract opportunity to write about something so important to me.

Braille is not a well understood thing, for many, even as technology takes on bigger parts of all our lives.

My early literacy is thanks to my parents and to the school I was in and braille is a large part of all that.

So, to share about the value of braille is so important to me. I just hope I can do it justice and give to it as much as it has given me.

I’m thankful Canada’s government didn’t shut down.

Disfunction at the highest level.

I know very little about trade agreements, but Canada is doing the work and staying involved with other countries, while moving away from what the US seems to be heading for.

They are being run by someone who only pitches America, America First, or whatever, all things made in America. Whatever, to bring more jobs. I guess that is left to themselves, in their own country. Isolation.

If his government can’t even work together, to stay open a year after his inauguration, how well will they do, on their own, if that is what they prefer?

I’m thankful I could be in on a meeting to discuss traveling out west, for a convention in British Columbia.

The Canadian Federation of the Blind have a convention, every May, where issues important to blind Canadians are discussed.

This year, Ontario is coming to western Canada and we are going to make our mark.

I was only in B.C. in the airport, changing flights to the Yukon. I intend to go back, to speak about the project to make audio description in movie theatres a common thing, and I will see the Pacific Ocean while I’m at it.

I’m thankful that the marching continued, one year later, with all the more reason to do so.

I wondered, did worry, that it was a one year hit action/movement and those who like to criticize would be able to point at the one time visual as a sign that making our voices heard isn’t needed or productive.

I did not see all the signs, but had a few read to me. Some smart sign writers in those marches.

This is a current US president thing, true, but it is bigger than that guy. It is a stand against what has been.

It leaves a bunch of us out, those who find marching in the streets difficult, but it is heartening to me anyway.

I want things to only get better, going forward, in the years to come. I have a vested interest in that, in compassion and in empathy, for not only one gender or class or whatever.

I understand the fatigue that can set in, but we all must keep doing something, however small. I am still working out what that something is for me.

I’m thankful for a chance to listen to a local orchestra, playing my kind of a symphony and to see a movie live, that I missed the first time around.

I saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the film, on a big screen at a sport stadium.

Then, I saw the soundtrack being played by live orchestra. It was a strange experience of my senses.

I heard parts of the soundtrack, differently than I’d ever heard them, when blended into the background of the movie on DVD at home.

Int was strange, seeing with a crowd of other major Harry Potter fans, with all the cheers and the comments made by nearby fans.

The bells and the percussion section and the other main instruments that make up that famously known and heard Harry Potter musical sound.

I’m thankful for things that happen (or don’t happen) for a reason.

Maybe I don’t get what I want, in one moment, but that leads me to something else. Maybe I am getting what I can handle, what I need to teach me what I need to know.

Who knows.

I resisted the “door/window” line of optimism.

I am ending, this week, with another comforting song from The Cranberries, the Irish band that was and is no more.

My brother generously added it to his playlist on the radio show he hosts, every Friday morning, on a college radio station in London, Ontario.

Lamb vs Lion, #SoCS

This is supposed to be the time and place to just write, whatever it is that comes to miming, through my fingers on the keys.

Right? Yeah. I’m working through it all.

I focus on one month at a time, trying not to look too far ahead of myself in this year that feels vital somehow. It’s 2017 and it’s only the third month in. I still have a chance to do something great.

January was great. January was Mexico. So far, not much can top that. It’s hard when starting a new year with such an adventure, so long waited for, but I try to keep an open mind about the possibilities I could still discover are on the way.

I feel like I want to do something. As the day of that January
march
was taking place, I was not in the crowds of faces, all carrying signs and there to fight back.

I was in a hotel room, in Detroit Michigan and watching it all unfold on the television. I had other things on my mind, as I felt traveling alone was enough of a sign, symbolic that I would not hide away any longer. I would be seen and I would do something for me.

I, as a woman, I had my immediate goal of making it to Mexico by myself, which I didn’t know would turn out so well, not at the time.

I want to do something, since then, all the more. I will take steps, in this month of newness of a season.

With both Women’s History Month and recently it having been the International Women’s Day, I wonder still what we women should be, what we are expected to be from society.

Are we the gentle, feminine lamb or the strong, fierce lioness?

I fear being lost in those crowds. That day wasn’t only an U.S. thing. It was done all over the world. It’s sometimes like the U.S. is the only place that matters, or that’s how the world sees it coming from the centre of North America, but we all want justice and respect.

So, my inability to see my way through such massive bunches of people means I fight in other ways, I march in other manifestations.

I use technology to my advantage. I look to those who have seen more and are working to bring change.

We don’t have to be one or the other. We can be lambs and lions, as this month suggests, even when that scares some of the less enlightened among us.

Physical Place and Emotional Space, #SoCS #1000Speak

Whilst I complain sometimes that this new Facebook feature, going live, seems to slow down the voice program on my phone. On a day like today however, I see its benefits.

I am currently listening to a Facebook Live session from a nearby museum. Or is it at the theatre? in a town, not too far from me, but which I am not at this time.

I’d gone to this museum several times, the last few summers, for

Shakespeare’s First Folio.

I’ve gone for exhibits and talks about the world wars,

World War I,

and World War II as well.

But now I am listening to a panel of refugees. They are speaking about the countries they come from, how those places influenced them, and how being in Canada has allowed them to speak from a position of peace and yet with the right amount of noise and outrage for some of the human rights violations that go on every day, back in history into today.

Note: I mostly place *** ahead of any or all things said by the members on the panel, in place of actual quotes for things they said, things I heard, and the mashup in between. I hope I can make clear what are my thoughts and what are those experiences of the three experts I just listened to.

This post happened in the moment, but I realize it could serve as a post for any of the following:

Stream of Consciousness Saturday,

1000 Voices Speak For Compassion,

or even the Ten Things of Thankful post I write every weekend.

This was very much a stream of consciousness sort of post, as I was technically taking notes as I listened, but I wanted to go ahead and share them, plus my impressions and thoughts as I listened.

I didn’t realize this panel was taking place today, but I have access to Facebook and can listen in still. I feel deeply for anyone who has had to live through wars and governmental, religious, cultural upheaval.

This topic of refugees, “topic” sounds like a strange word for it, but I just don’t know, though words come easily in most cases. Not always, not here and now though.

This speaker came with his parents, exiled from Iran, at the age of nine. He lost loved ones, family and friends, back in Iran, to executions. Stuff I hear about in the news all the time, can’t fathom, and brush past the headlines to preserve my sanity. This is tough tough stuff. I feel helpless. I write so I have my own voice. I know I am lucky to have that.

My heart hurts. Those forced to leave their homes to survive and to save their families from further danger. He says we in North America are somewhat uncomfortable with pain and suffering. Struggling, he says.

***an empty shell, suffering. To have that fire, you reach a point where you have no choice.”

He speaks of what is beautiful and inspiring. He’s seen crimes against humanity. He felt such a sense of helplessness as a child. Lost his uncle to torture. He saw horrifying images. He learned his instinct for wanting to end injustice.

***It’s not abstract. It cuts you open like a knife.

He went, fresh out of law school.

After World War II, Cold War, the forming of the UN.

Criminal tribunal. I know little about these things. He teaches me and all who listen.

That line, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That’s life for the world. Always.

I wish everyone could hear this man speak, all these speakers.

Humbling. He comes across that way. Futility, enormity. No [punishment is ever enough.

He refers to Nazi punishment at Nuremberg. I saw the movie., My father watched. The lawyers being there. I can’t imagine actually being there, attempting, given that responsibility to give punishment for unthinkable acts. Evil is the word that comes immediately to my mind, but they were all humans too. All of them.

I have the best life here in Canada. Circumstance. Fate. Luck. Whatever you want to call it. We don’t get to choose where and when we are born into this world. Personal past and the wrongs that are done. I see roadblocks. I see them clear. I see people knocking down roadblocks of all kinds. I have knocked down my share, but there are always more, more more.

Others do it. Grace. Genuine humility. Selflessness amongst the selfish world.

Life isn’t always the greatest for all humanity.

This FacebookLive thing isn’t bad at all.

***Living inside the fray vs living outside of it.

This woman has a platform to speak about what happens, good and bad, in her country of Kenya. Violations of treaties. Abuse of women and children. Discriminations. She speaks in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Her words are powerful in their truth. She wants her country to be equal in its society, eliminating fear, from her position here in Canada. These countries need to learn from each other.

Easy to be full of ideals. Getting into life and reality can shock. True meaning and purpose. This man teaches younger generations, from his experiences. Education.

***Emotion as a form of cognition. Privilege over intimacy. Intellectual rigour. If you don’t understand the reality. you will never have passion to use your ability to go and make a difference.

***Exploit. Own moral virtue. General empathy. Fruits of sorrow. Some do work others arrive for harvest. glamorization of human rights. Profound human experience. Account of suffering. Platitudes. Feel good activism. Idealism is about struggle and being wounded and continuing. Emptied ourselves of that understanding. To separate theory from practice.

Nelson Mandela comes up. Imprisoned for years:

“Sometimes I miss it. I got a lot of reading done.”

Spirit. Upside of suffering. Inspiring each other. Draw on that courage.

Kosovo. Bombings. Refugee crisis happened there too.

Orphanages and institutions all around the world with kids in need of a home and someone to love them. Earlier I watched videos about J.K. Rowling’s foundation,

LUMOS,

a spell to produce light from Harry Potter,

from which I named my cat.

I hope Canada can do our part. We are not innocent. We’ve caused suffering. I don’t know the half of it even.

How to help those who must flee is not a new question. I have no real answers. I write. Stream of consciousness, I use stream of consciousness to relieve some of the pressure.

***Silver lining inside dark clouds. Circumstances, didn’t kill them, made them stronger.

World at large scares me. Gives me hope yet still too. Flip flop. Flip flop.

Prominent human rights lawyers. Doing what they can. All my stereotypes of what a lawyer does and I can’t deny their knowledge and wisdom and influence.

Speaking on certain world leaders. Not an easy job, but so often filled with self interest. Naive and idealistic. It always comes back to that for many of us.

***Cynical short sided policies.

He’s bemused. Good word.

Corruption. Complicity. The west. Middle East. ISIS. His idealism is tempered by realism. The global village is a mess reality but is a reality.

He wanted simple corporate life, just before September 11th, in New York.

He speaks of it so soon after last week’s anniversary.

Policy makers. Theories. Clash of civilization.

***Complex diverse fabric. Took preparation to tear that apart.

Middle East politics. I know nothing about this.

Human rights. Rule of law.

***Refugees are the symptom. Not the cause.

HE says. I just I just…

***Ceasefire. Multi laterally.

Talk over my head. I feel like a child who does not comprehend such things. Of course, I comprehend, I do, I think, even if I do not understand.

I hope Justin Trudeau can do something. Is that possible? The EU. So much to keep up with and my head hurts. Meditation. My best option?

Governments need to work together, like we demand from children, siblings, at school. Leadership and resolve.

Compassion post? Where do we learn empathy and compassion from? How do some not learn it, or unlearn it later?

I believe I’ve learned that from my family and from my disability. You see things differently, or else blindness should force you to do so.

Africa feels so far away to me. The world, so large, west, east, north, south.

She’s proud to say she is Canadian now. We are proud to have her here. Her home is always on her mind. You can hear it in her earnest words and tone.

***Political will.

Hmm.

***Willing but their hands were tired. problems. Take care of their own, rather than others that come.

Hmm.

Camps. Refugee camps. Camps are the word I, here in Canada, feel most uncomfortable about. They are all there is for so many though.

I’ve heard from those in literature. From these activists and civil servants.

Those last ones look forward to the day when they are unemployed. Will that day ever come?

They can not be everywhere all the time. Nobody has that power.

Mass migration and mass movements. Here in Canada we can’t nor should we avoid thinking about it, facing its undeniablility.

We are apart of this world. How do we treat indigenous people here, mirrors how we do for others around the world.

He visits prisons in Iraq. Unsuccessful suicide bombers. Young young men. HE speaks to them. Eighteen and Syrian. Must kill enemies. Then he speaks of the violence he has seen and misses his mommy, his village, wanted to go to medical school. Understanding from an intimate position. How recruitment occurs. Highly corrupt. Religious extremism. We are, all of us, susceptible. We can’t run from this. We are all interdependent.

***Hold our leaders accountable. Resume responsibility. Assume it. Do our share. Impossible for a few to clean up any mess.

A lot of blaming of journalists. Media looks at one problem. Pay attention. Feel powerless. Then what?

How to get beyond colour, I am colour blind. This does not solve it entirely of course.

Robert Kennedy. Fifty years ago. Before my time.

Female genital mutilation. Gender based violence. We feel like we need to pick an issue. These are real, live human beings, silence no more.

Teachers teach and then those students go on to teach children.

I am here in the virtual audience. Big big biggest questions, heavy with importance.

Silly thought, but like my still growing in-box, I fall behind. We have fallen behind.

Justice isn’t always so easy. I watch a documentary on Netflix about the idea of Hitler escaping, and I wonder. What if he had? Conspiracy theories linger, nonsensically.

Ethnic. Ethic. How to obtain sustainable peace? Long term?

***Spectacle of ISIS.

Regimes. Atrocities. Don’t make it to social media. Refugees flee from government. ISIS is the word most people see and hear. Undoubtedly it is all causing such strife.

***Dabbling in feminism. Iran calls it. Complex transition. Authoritarian. Fundamentalist. Leaderships. Repress. Youth want democracy. What kind of a coward is afraid of a feminist?

No kidding. Time isn’t often on their side.

Our leaders, those in positions of power, they do abuse that. How do we fix it? My idealism and naiveté showing again.

Korea.

History straight from this speaker, this man, from those things I was not yet born to see.

***Rule of law and rule of force. How to be civilized.

North Korea. People starving. I have no clue.

Nothing makes you feel better. Well, listening to these people helps a little.

Darkness to light, from Korea, north to south.

Those images trouble me no doubt.

Genocide. Rwanda. Hatred. Dehumanizing. Calling human beings cockroaches. How could anyone, no matter who it is? Fifty years after the holocaust.

***In the moments of most tension people fail, their best intentions lost to history.

When we hear the window to prevent escalation of violence is mostly gone by.

This Iranian/Canadian human rights lawyer states any ordinary citizen should never feel we can’t make a difference, do something. Is this true? Can I help somehow?

Then, in Winnipeg, apologies for residential schools. Prime Minister gives this now. Elderly immigrant couple delivering cupcakes. Neighbours. Could barely speak English but they brought “transcendent humanity” to their indigenous neighbours.

“all that it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.”

I must check this Facebook page more often.

Stratford Festival

There is good being done everywhere. I need only seek it out.

Magic: Lost and Found, #FTSF #JusticeForTim

I’ve always said that I think all children should get to see and experience Disney World at least once. There’s a child in all of us. Become a kid again.

Oh, sure. I was the little girl afraid of the characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy) who walked the park and posed for photos with families. I was the girl afraid to ride Space Mountain. I still count my family’s 1992 trip to Florida as an important childhood memory.

Our parents announced the trip to us one night at dinner. I still vaguely remember that announcement. We were eating chicken and I looked at the flowers on the old plates my mom had at the time, thrilled for two weeks off school and a giant road trip with my family.

We drove in the blue van. We stopped in Atlanta, Georgia. We went to Disney, Sea World, the ocean. It was my first time at the ocean, in my young memory.

We collected shark teeth that we found buried in the sand. We swam in pools and ate oranges. We did Florida up right.

***

In the last week alone, In Florida, a terrible mass shooting took place at a gay nightclub and a little child was killed by an alligator. I don’t mean to single out Florida, I loved my time there, the next two times as well as the first. It’s just…when was it that I realized no place is Disney perfect?

All this shock and sadness and grief and horror in Orlando.

***

When we were in Florida we visited the Everglades. We took a boat ride through the swamps. How many alligators were there in those waters around us? That is their home. How do animals and people live side-by-side and stay out of each other’s way? These are questions that plague me now. They never even crossed my mind when I was eight.

I held a baby alligator. I felt it squirm. His mouth was held closed. I couldn’t possibly grasp what a full grown version of the animal would be like. I didn’t have any fear of meeting one and not surviving the encounter. My parents would keep me safe. The alligators would know I was not food, right?

You think Florida, you think alligators. You don’t hear about a child dying from such a danger, at a resort. It is rare. It is unimaginable.

When it comes to more youthful days, I will always remember Florida with my family. For one family, a father who couldn’t hold on and a mother and sibling who were helpless on shore, Florida will never be happy.

***

I am grown now. I can’t pretend and believe in Disney magic, when the news stories just keep on coming at me.

A baby’s lifeless body was found in a dumpster in a town not far from mine just yesterday morning.

A father was taken from his wife and little girl.

It was May of 2013, and the news reported a young father was missing, after he put his truck up for sale online, and left to take it for a test drive with a few perspective buyers. Those buyers had selfish and evil intentions.

He never came home. His killers would be charged.

I heard the wife plead for her husband’s safe return, but something in me knew that would never happen.

When I heard that a little girl would never get to visit Disney, wide eyed, with her father, I was horrified. I felt ill.

When I thought how I’d feel if someone dared to take my brother away from his child, I through the big yellow envelope I was holding across the room. I couldn’t pretend that all was well and that bad things didn’t sometimes happen to decent people.

***

Today is exactly twenty-two years since that chase which was broadcast on live television. I did not have a clue who O.J. Simpson was. I hardly ever followed the news. I was only ten and I didn’t think much about the worst news stories of the nineties.

Now I know more. My eyes have been opened. I can’t go back to that ten-year-old girl I once was who was off playing, while the adults were glued to some high speed chase of a famous athlete on TV. I can’t go back to being that eight-year-old girl who was afraid of the live action characters that seemed real in some of those Disney rides. Life would soon get more frightening, the real world as it’s often known.

I do live some of my youth through the children in my life now. It keeps me sane. It keeps me believing in a little bit of magic still.

***

The verdict has come down today. After a week of horror unfolding, within seconds spread across social media, I was relieved to hear about some criminal justice done. That little girl and her mother and their family will never get their loved one back, but the killers have been found guilty of first degree murder. They are going to prison.

The power of justice. The magic of youth.

***

This week’s Finish the Sentence Friday hosts:

Finding Ninee, who is exploring reliving childhood through one’s children.

Along with her is

Deborah of Life is Like a Hand Grenade,

stepping in at the last minute.

IN THE NEWS AND ON MY MIND: Lions, Tigers, and Bears – Oh My!

“Watching the news in the evening is a bit like being on an emotional Tilt-aWhirl. “Isis now sets people on fire.” “Harper Lee has a new book out!” “Some oddballs are bringing measles back because they’re scared of autism, which is a bit like saying I’m worried about birthday candles, so let’s start a forest fire.” “It’s going to be gorgeous this weekend!” “Look, a politician being deliberately rude.” “And also, look at these adorable puppies!” My limbic system does not work that fast!”

I would like to expand on the list of seemingly random news topics my FB friend started above, in my sporadic mid-week Wednesday post: IN THE NEWS AND ON MY MIND.

I thought about what’s been front and centre, in the news lately, and here I go:

**the recent hacks into the adult dating website Ashley Madison.

I don’t care what a couple consenting adults (and I use that term loosely) do, as long as it’s consensual. My problem is when there are lies and deceit involved.

The site’s tag line, “Life is short. Have an affair,” is the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard and I hate that it’s a Canadian company. My problem with it, even though it’s people I have no business with, is that it reflects badly on society at large. All I can add would be, I don’t feel badly in this instance, and karma’s a bitch.

However, this Vice article has an interesting take on the situation,

here.

**Then the long suffering story of Deflate-gate.

The final decision on the ruling and appeal is that Tom Brady is solely responsible. The coach and all others involved are off the hook, but of course Tom wasn’t the only one with knowledge, having done something shady here.

Tom Brady: Why I had deflate gate mobile phone destroyed

He destroyed his cell phone, for unrelated issues he claims, and now he is stuck with his mansion and his gorgeous super model wife. Poor guy.

I suppose all this affects other people, those who may not be involved. I can say it’s only a game, just a silly football player, but then I remember people and the pure joy I’ve seen in them when it comes to football, this team in particular. Although it may seem insignificant to me, I want to keep an open mind because sports can be a positive thing, something to make people happy.

On the other hand, cheating isn’t a lesson I want today’s youth to pick up from their favourite athletes.

**The Netflix Newborn Policy.

Netflix Now Giving Employees ‘Unlimited’ Maternity, Paternity Leave – HuffPost

“Looks like NetFlix is onto something,” the American reporter said, to end his news story.

They do realize how much of the rest of the world has been “onto something”, this something specifically, for quite a while now, don’t they?

First it was IT and tech companies who were in the news for offering egg freezing for their female employees.

Apple and Facebook Offer To Freeze Eggs For Female Employees – The Guardian

Do they offer on-site day care facilities?

The work force and these companies, society as a whole, has this whole thing all wrong. Don’t offer incentives for women to hold off on having children because they won’t have to worry, can focus on career, and just worry about starting families later. Offer time off for parent-child bonding from the beginning, without the pressures to get right back to work. Depending on frozen embryos isn’t the answer.

Why does America only seem to care for themselves? I am sure that isn’t everyone, but it’s still an “every man for himself…or woman, as it so happens” situation and this is so very backwards.

We are giving birth and raising the next generation. They matter. Invest in them. Don’t focus on money alone and what it will take away from everyone else.

No. Women are not going to milk it, having children just so they can get time off work. That is a silly excuse and a lame go-to rebuff to what most of the rest of the world has already figured out.

The other argument is, oh what about other women and men who have decided, for whatever reason, not to have children. It’s not fair and even for them. So life isn’t always fair.

I’m blind. What’s fair about that? I’ve learned to deal and they can too.

Even if this does start a trend, there will always be those who judge women on this, their loyalty or their work ethic, but now that fathers are included in this, I hope for more gender equality all around. This is including adopted parents too.

**Immigrants and migrants.

I heard it’s something like 2,000 so far this year. That’s the number of African and other migrants to have come, trying to sneak into Europe, being stuffed into boats by greedy smugglers, sinking and drowning by the boatload.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33791920

It’s so sad, the things, the types of persecution these poor people are fleeing from, hoping for a safe crossing to a better life. They may realize how unsafe their journey seems, but are desperate and willing to risk whatever they must. Those who capitalize on this vulnerability are the scum, but with all these stories I’ve tried to keep an open mind, even if it might not appear to be so.

        And last but certainly not least:

With the story of Cecil the Lion being talked about everywhere lately, with airlines banning transport of hunting trophies and 90s favourite Beanie Babies soon to release one of the lion and with sales going to wildlife causes, I thought of a movie my brother and I watched several years ago.

This was still when we lived at home with our parents and when VHS was how we watched our movies, the pre-DVD era in our household.

Have you ever seen the film starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas?

Ghost and the Darkness

He was famous Doors front man Jim Morrison, Batman, and a blind massage therapist. It was his highly convincing role as John Henry Patterson, real life engineer and author of the nonfiction book “The Man-eaters of Tsavo” that is as far from The Lion King as you’re going to get.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man-eaters_of_Tsavo

“Even now, if you dare lock eyes with them – YOU WILL BE AFRAID.”

A blogger I follow said it better than I thought I could:

https://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/cecil-the-lions-death-highlights-the-fact-that-humanity-is-the-scourge-of-a-fragile-earth/

However, with all the animal stories in the media and in the headlines I try to keep an open mind.

In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry For Lions – The New York Times

Do we here in North America truly know what it must be like ore in places like Africa and Asia, where some of the most dangerous animals live alongside humans? We shout our disapproval when a story of mistreatment happens to get picked up, but what do we really know of it?

In the time of “Ghost and the Darkness”, we had no social media to spread a story far and wide in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

I do know that we are all sharing this planet and deserve to share its resources, but our shared use of all this gives those determined to destroy for their own aims the chance to mess it up for us all.

Oil here in Canada.

The clear causes of global warming and the power of nature, with the extreme weather and lack of water in not just far away deserts, but drouth in California, which is so often in the news.

Is it such a surprise that wildlife is being poached illegally?

I disagree with how we treat animals, The Calgary Stampede or the Running of the Bulls for example.

I have had and do have hunters in my family. I grew up with it around me at times. Sure, it was never my thing, but I went on eating meat. I still do. I am not a vegetarian, but I have vegetarians in my family as well.

I love my family and respect their wishes. It’s a little harder to judge those you care about and know personally.

I don’t see why anyone would want to hunt a lion for sport. I don’t get the point of mounting an animal’s head on the wall. What satisfaction does that possibly provide?

Someone needing to feel superior to an animal. Yes, we humans have advanced weapons and we can come out on top. Doesn’t mean we should.

Defenseless, like so many are afraid to be without their guns, we would be at the mercy of a wild animal or an intruder, both of which may very well intend to cause harm.

I want to understand those living in Zimbabwe, just like I want to understand why the people living in the remote Faroe Islands have an annual pilot whale hunt as a part of their culture.

http://www.mappingmegan.com/understanding-faroe-islands-grindadrap/

I want to understand different cultures, not to simply sit in judgment from over here, without the foggiest clue.

I am definitely no radical activist. I respect the passion they have, if all they want is to save a species from being hunted to the edge or off the edge of extinction. I often wish I had it in me to go out and make a difference, but for now I remain here, writing to hopefully make my voice heard amongst the roar and the uproar.

Ghost and the Darkness seemed a wild, historical, adventure film. I was hooked by it from that first time I watched with my brother. He described the scenes where Douglas and Kilmer hunt the bloodthirsty lions. Truthfully, although characters like the doctor (played by Bernard Hill) meet their end at the jaws of the killers, it was more the cow that was sacrificed by the people and the baboon used as bait to catch the lions that bothered me most.

This true story made an excellent film, showcasing what it was like then and now. Why humans hunt. It’s an important part of many cultures, since the beginning of humanity, and our modern times now seems to have made it a trophy sport, for pleasure and for fun.

So many traditions should come to an end, in my opinion. We must learn to let go of certain practices, to make way for the advances we have made and the knowledge we now possess. There’s just no need for some things, unnecessarily curl things.

I commented on the above blog on Cecil and the wider problems, and it wasn’t a very optimistic comment. The blogger tried to reply in a more positive light, but I don’t know how to look at our world in just such a light most of the time, if I am being honest. It is apparent that many people care, as the response to Cecil shows, but at the same time we are battling a large segment of our world that just does not care, is only out for itself, as I have pointed to several times in this week’s “In The News and On My Mind” post.

Then there has been the demand for blood, directed toward the dentist who killed Cecil. I don’t know the man and his motives, nor what’s in his heart. I don’t condone his actions, but he is a human being, therefore I believe there can’t be mob ruled justice, as outraged as so many are.

Why should be be honest in our relationships or in athletics?

Why should we care about those being persecuted in their own countries or those who want to spend time with their newborns?

Why does it matter to think about how we use the world’s resources or why animals are important to our planet and to its future?

I hope I don’t have to even answer that, but some people just don’t get it, nor do they care, and I’m not sure that can be fixed with rational convictions or logical bullet points. I don’t know why “every man for himself” seems to be how humans think and act.

What are your thoughts on any of these topics I’ve mentioned here today? The discussion needs to continue. for all our sakes.