She bubbled as she said,"You can wish me a happy birthday! I'm 51." I rarely ever find another adult as excited about her birthday as I am about mine, so feeling as though I'd found a kindred spirit, I enthusiastically wished her a happy birthday. I told her that I was 53, and felt very lucky to be here, since some don't make it to be our age.
"Well, then you'll appreciate this story," she said. "When I was 34, I was diagnosed with stage 4* breast cancer. I was basically given a death sentence by the doctors."
"And here you are, seventeen years later," I said. She was the very picture of good health...shiny hair, sparkling bright blue eyes, and a glowing complexion. She was in a word, radiant. "That explains why you are so happy," I added.
She nodded. "Yeah. Even when I have a really bad day, I just get up the next morning and say, 'Okay. Let's try this again.'"
Happy Thanksgiving.
Susan
*Stage 4 is the most advanced stage of cancer
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Fat Cats
College football is big business. I've believed for a long time that college athletes should be paid a salary. It's true that they receive a free college education in exchange for playing a sport, yet it's nothing compared to the money universities make off them. In addition to the criminal charges leveled against alleged rapist Jerry Sandusky, I hope the victims bring civil proceedings against Penn State to hold it accountable. All the money in the world would never compensate a child for being raped, but money is the only language these fat cats seem to speak.
Authority figures at every level failed these children, and there are so many accomplices to Sandusky's crimes it is difficult to keep a count. The most visible accomplice is larger-than-life legend Joe Paterno himself. He was never going to retire. I always imagined him passing away suddenly one Saturday afternoon in autumn, right there on the sidelines of the football field. So I suppose being fired was the worst thing that could happen to him, yet it's nothing compared to the rape of these children.
If civil lawsuits are filed, the fat cats will be eager to settle out of court. The victims have already suffered so much that they might not want to relive the horror all over again with a civil trial, so maybe a financial settlement from the school will feel like justice to them. Any way it happens, they deserve justice since they got no mercy.
I imagine that over the past few days, there have been lots of men and women in suits conferring nervously with lawyers and talking about damage control there in State College, Pennsylvania. This bombshell had to have given the fat cats a heart attack. Yet it's nothing compared to the rape of these children.
Susan
Lyrics to "Uprising" by Matthew Bellamy
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Accomplice
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke
Have you seen the video of the family law judge from Texas beating his 16-year-old daughter with a belt? Now 23, she says this was not an isolated instance, and she is releasing the secretly taped video so her father "can get all the help he needs." He says, "In my mind, I didn't do anything wrong." She says; he says. I think there are a number of reasons corporal punishment is wrong, but the fact is, it is legal and a majority of Americans believe in it and practice it. But even if you are in the pro-spanking camp, I think you will be disturbed by the video, and it's not just the severity of what the father refers to as a "spanking." His rage, his profanity, his lack of control push it over the line into abuse. It is ironic that in his profession, he presides over child abuse cases.
But let's not demonize the father unless we are going to draw horns on the mother's head as well. She participates in the ordeal, at one point yelling at her daughter to "lay down and take it like a grown woman." Now divorced from the judge, the mother says she "did everything he did." That makes me think she also beat the girl.
For every abuser, there is an enabler. Perhaps not fully participating like Hallie Adams, but complicit in the act as well. She might go into another room, she might whistle Dixie so she can't hear it, she might look the other way, she might pretend she doesn't know, she might pretend it never happened. By not ending it, she perpetuates it. So who is worse? The abuser or the one who doesn't step in to stop it? There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference to me.
Susan
Have you seen the video of the family law judge from Texas beating his 16-year-old daughter with a belt? Now 23, she says this was not an isolated instance, and she is releasing the secretly taped video so her father "can get all the help he needs." He says, "In my mind, I didn't do anything wrong." She says; he says. I think there are a number of reasons corporal punishment is wrong, but the fact is, it is legal and a majority of Americans believe in it and practice it. But even if you are in the pro-spanking camp, I think you will be disturbed by the video, and it's not just the severity of what the father refers to as a "spanking." His rage, his profanity, his lack of control push it over the line into abuse. It is ironic that in his profession, he presides over child abuse cases.
But let's not demonize the father unless we are going to draw horns on the mother's head as well. She participates in the ordeal, at one point yelling at her daughter to "lay down and take it like a grown woman." Now divorced from the judge, the mother says she "did everything he did." That makes me think she also beat the girl.
For every abuser, there is an enabler. Perhaps not fully participating like Hallie Adams, but complicit in the act as well. She might go into another room, she might whistle Dixie so she can't hear it, she might look the other way, she might pretend she doesn't know, she might pretend it never happened. By not ending it, she perpetuates it. So who is worse? The abuser or the one who doesn't step in to stop it? There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference to me.
Susan
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