California Angels

Not the baseball team. The angels I am talking about are those who help a group of often forgotten people. They make up 65% of California's prison population. They comprise 40% of my state's homeless shelter population. And 98% of them never attend college. They are former foster kids, sometimes called throwaway kids. Those children, who through no fault of their own, end up as wards of the court. Their parents cannot or will not care for them. (There is often a fine line between unable and unwilling.) So they end up in foster care, a lot of them going from one home to the next. Then they turn 18, the money the foster family collects for them runs out, and they are abruptly out on their own. Some slip through the cracks.

Santa Barbara City College has 85 students who are former foster children, and the school's Foundation just received $5,000 from Southern California Edison (the local electric company) which will be used to help these young adults get an education.

Then a little further south in the Orange county community of Lake Forest, we find Lori Burns, a former foster kid who is now a technology executive. Burns founded The Teen Project (www.teenproject.com.) It all started with her purchasing a home where young women who had aged out of the system could stay as they transitioned into the adult world.

Actually, it all started a lot earlier than that. When Burns was three years old, and her father began using her as a punching bag.  Then her mother took off, and left alone with her father, life for Burns went from bad to worst. She spent time in a facility for the criminally insane, after her father falsely accused her of trying to kill him. She was gang raped. She turned to drugs. She has written a book, Punished for Purpose, with all the details. But the long story short of it, is Burns turned her life around but never forgot what it was like to suffer. She now helps young people who are walking that same painful path that was once hers.

Burns survived, then went on to thrive. Happy, sober and with a six-figure income, she was by anyone's definition a success. She could have gotten on with her life, relieved and filled with joy to have her suffering behind her. Perhaps she could have written a check now and then to a charity  No one would have blamed her for wanting to move on. No one would have blamed her for not looking back.

Yet the thing about suffering is, it changes us. Some suffer and go on to inflict pain on others. Some suffer and move on, silently trying to forget. And then there are those angels who earn their wings, the ones who suffer and allow it to transform them. They reach out to those walking that same painful path, and they tell them there is something better ahead. But they don't just point them in that direction. They take each one by the hand as if to say, Walk with me. I'll show you the way.

Susan

Credit Where Credit Is Due

When I was in elementary school, our assignment was to write poetry and then read it aloud to the class. Even then I was a pretty good writer, and I was happy with my poem, which I worked very hard to compose. The teacher was wowed by one student whose poem, I immediately recognized, had been copied word for word from one of the books in our classroom. My classmate basked in the glow of praise from our teacher, who seemed in awe of the level of sophistication of this particular work. Later in the day, I got the book from the shelf, opened it to the page with the poem and talked privately to my teacher. I don't know what happened after that. I don't know if she spoke to my classmate, and she certainly didn't talk to the class and tell us what the word plagiarism meant. I do know that I intuitively knew it was wrong to take credit for someone else's work.

I have loved to read ever since I was a small girl, and I can remember reading and thinking about the author, the person who wrote the book, the person who illustrated it. When my kids were small and I read aloud to them, I always read the title of the book, and then the name of the author and illustrator, these amazing people who brought such wonderful stories to life. Aside from the obvious dollars and cents part of it, it seems to me to be such a violation, to steal the work, the idea, the creation, even the peanut butter cookie recipe of someone else, and purport it to be your own. I recently was promoted at work, which puts me in a supervisory capacity, and I try very hard to be careful to give credit to my coworkers when it comes to their accomplishments and ideas. It just seems to be the respectful thing to do, to acknowledge them in this way.

Last Friday, Apple won a $1 billion lawsuit against Samsung for patent infringement. A few months ago, I was in one of the huge electronics stores with my younger son, and we were looking at the newest phones. We remarked how similar the Android phones were to our Apple iphones. Way too similar, it would seem now. Another hearing is scheduled for September 20, where a ban on the sale of Samsung phones in the US will be discussed. The dollar amount for damages awarded to Apple could be increased as well, if it is determined the infringement was intentional. I don't know what is involved in that, from a legal standpoint. But to someone like me, I can't imagine how it wasn't intentional, given the fact that the iphone was from day one such a wonder with no other smart phone even touching it for so long.

It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. (If you know who said this, please tell me so I can credit that person.) But imitation can sometimes be stealing, plain and simple.

UPDATE: It is Charles Caleb Colton. Thanks to my older brother for this. = )

Susan

Phyllis Diller

The world is a little less funny today. Phyllis Diller died yesterday at the age of 95.

Susan

Will You Be There For Me?

How much do I love this song? So much!

 

"There For Me" written by Angelo LaBionda, Carmelo LaBionda and Charly Ricanek

Susan

Witch Hunt

A few hundred years ago, we had witch trials in our country. How to determine if a woman was a witch? Tie her to a big rock and toss her in the nearest body of water. If she floats, she's a witch. If she sinks, she is not. Either way, the girl is dead.

I learned today that there is a test to determine if a woman has been raped. This scientific discovery comes to us from Missouri representative Todd Akin. Staunchly no-choice, he was asked if a woman who is raped should be allowed to have an abortion. Well, there is no need to debate that because if a woman is "legitimately" raped, the female body has "ways to take care of it." He has been told this by "doctors."

If a woman has not been "legitimately" raped, she will become pregnant. And in that case, she is a liar for saying she was raped, probably a slut and possibly a witch. Either way, she has no reproductive rights.

(Words in quotes are from Akin.)

Susan

There Goes the Neighborhood

It's not loud music in the wee hours of the morning, or an old junky car sitting in the driveway. But the neighbors in Angela Prattis' Philadelphia neighborhood have a problem with her. She distributes food to hungry neighborhood children from outside her home. Her Roman Catholic diocese provides the food, and Prattis is one of over forty people in the community who have been screened and trained to do this. She used to do it from the church property, but after she had her new baby just thought it easier to do it from her home. There is a real need for these low income kids, who receive free breakfast and lunch at school when it's in session, but also get hungry during June, July and August.

"There has been a complaint," a Chester township official reported. The first complaint ever. It's a zoning issue, and the township was ready to fine Prattis $600, until the local media got a hold of the story. Then they postponed fining her pending a meeting on August 24. She has the option of applying for a variance with no guarantee she would get it, and the cost would be $1,000. Involved in many community projects, Prattis is a busy woman who doesn't have time for this nonsense, and she is inclined to just keep on doing what she's been doing. She says there is one member of local government in particular who has it in for her, and that it's politically motivated.

Prattis, the youth director at her church, is likely familiar with the New Testament teachings supporting earthly authority. Mark 17:12 quotes Jesus as saying, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's." So we could make a case for Prattis obeying the local ordinance. I'm not a Christian, so I would rather make a case against pettiness and meanness.

Why do we focus on the trivial (a zoning ordinance) while ignoring the elephant in the room, which is this: We live in a very rich nation where there are parents who are not able to feed their children. Then someone who does it gets all kind of flak for it.

And Angela Prattis? Well. Any neighborhood should be proud to have her.

Susan

Who is Paul Ryan?

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." Ayn Rand

The name of this blog comes from the novel The Fountainhead written by the late, brilliant Ayn Rand. How to pronounce her first name? She would tell people it rhymed with "swine." She was an agnostic; some call her an atheist. She was a Russian immigrant. She was adamantly pro-choice. She and her husband had an open marriage, each one taking lovers. She enjoyed being the submissive in BDSM play. She said of Ronald Reagan that since he did not support the right to an abortion, he could not be trusted to support any rights. While her followers take her quite seriously, Rand always possessed the ability to poke fun at herself. Is she somewhere out in the great beyond laughing herself silly right now?

The right wing portion of the Republican Party, those who have called themselves the Tea Party, love to quote Rand. In an amazing display of cognitive dissonance, they conveniently disregard everything else about this woman, as they pay homage to her ode to capitalism, Atlas Shrugged.  As a writer myself, I am in awe of Rand's imagination, her command of the English language,  and then of the hard work it must have taken to get it all down on paper. It asks the famous question,"Who is John Galt?"

Atlas Shrugged is a novel. It's a work of fiction, a very long one at that. I have read it, all 645,000 words, give or take a few. Rand was nothing if not verbose. Many of the Tea Party folks talk about it in such a way that makes me think they have not actually read it.  It would not surprise me, because many (most) of these folks are Christians, and that group is notorious for quoting the Bible, without actually reading it, all 728,000 words, give or take a few.

The problem with Mitt Romney, I would think any Tea Partier would agree, is that he is just not conservative enough. I know he has tried to rewrite his history to morph himself into a hard liner, but really the guy is a pretty liberal Republican, what with his pro-choice views and his health care plan. His newly announced running mate, Paul Ryan, helps to make that line much harder. Dick Cheney said he worships the ground Ryan walks on. Enough said?

Ryan himself is trying to rewrite his history, too, downplaying the fact that he has worshipped at the Rand altar for many years. He was at Rand rallies. He gave out copies of Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents to his workers. He disavows what he calls her atheistic philosophy, which he must do to appease the religious right. If Rand was alive today, she would not give the Tea Party the time of day, yet they swoon over her like a little girl at a Taylor Swift concert.

Ryan and Romney would create a new America, one much scarier than the one in Atlas Shrugged. It would be an America in which the rich white man prevails, crushing everyone under his feet. It would be an America where we worship the almighty dollar to the exclusion of everything else.

Who is John Galt? If you've never read the book, I won't answer that question. But it's fiction. Not reality. Unlike Romney and his new running mate, who if we are not careful, could become our new reality come November. There are other, more important questions. When did the rights of a fetus become more important than the well being of children already born? When did individualism become more important than the common good? When did capitalism become greed?

Who is Paul Ryan?

Susan

The Angry White Man

I live in an apartment complex where the majority of residents are Latino. Last week in the laundry room, a three-year-old girl pointed to the very large and close to the ground windows in that room, and said, "La puerta por los niños," meaning, "The door for the children." I understood what she had said and in my very elementary and broken Spanish told her mom how cute that was, because the window certainly could be a kid-sized door.

Occasionally people ask if it is a safe place to live, clearly implying that somehow it must be dangerous to have Latinos as neighbors. Actually, we did have one instance where the police were called. A neighbor had a gun and was holed up in his apartment, shooting the walls. It was both scary and fascinating, one of those times when as long as you don't die, it's kind of exciting. He was an Anglo. Not a Latino.

The most recent displays of violence we have had in the United States, the shooting in Wisconsin and the one in Colorado, involved Anglo men.

The subject of easy access in our country to guns, combined with anger and mental illness, is a complicated one. I grew up in the kind of home where, if there was a gun present, someone easily could have been shot. I am not fond of guns, and this whole "citizens have a right to bear arms" thing has gotten really distorted in my opinion.

Some of us want to blame crime and violence on those other people, Latinos or African-Americans or someone of a different religion, those "others" who are not like us. We carefully choose our homes in safe neighborhoods, surrounding ourselves with people just like us. A place where we can be isolated and insulated from the uglier realities of life. I don't know about that. Maybe we should beware the angry white man. Maybe, instead of thinking the problem is about all those "other" people, I should look at myself and understand that we are all in this together, and I am part of the problem, too. Only then will we be motivated enough to find some solutions.

It is not someone else's problem. It is my problem. It makes me squirm a little, but the truth is this. I have met the enemy, and she is me.

Susan

Happiness

Comic by Gavin Aung Than

Susan

Monday Fun Day

"Weapon of Choice" by Norman Cook aka Fat Boy Slim

Equality

My high school biology teacher was a blonde woman in her 20's, not that much older than us students. She would have been gorgeous no matter how she dressed, but she liked to wear the tight hip hugger type pants and snug body suit tops popular back in the 1970's. The boys drooled over her, and even her last name rhymed with the word for a female body part. Her demeanor was very serious and somber, and I don't recall there ever being talk of her behaving inappropriately. I had not thought of her for years until I saw the story about Kentucky high school teacher Sarah Jones, who is accused of having sex with one her underage students. Her mother, a principal in the same school district, is accused of tampering with evidence. The teacher resigned last fall, for "personal reasons." While both Jones and her mother have entered not guilty pleas and are enjoying our system's presumption of innocence, there are 9,000 pages of photos and text messages between Jones and the student. So at the very least, Jones displayed immaturity and very poor judgment. Hopefully her school district informs teachers of what is and what is not appropriate behavior for teachers, especially because the students are minors and the teachers are adults. There is a boundary, the one that separates the teacher and student. That is a huge boundary, the one that separates adults from children. It might be a good time for the school district to make appropriate guidelines for teachers clear. Crystal clear.

If sexual relations occurred, it is statutory rape, because those under the age of 18 cannot form consent. They are incapable of it. That would make Jones a predator, a rapist, a pedophile. Certainly if the teacher was a man and the student was a girl, no one would even question that it is a heinous crime. It should be no different with Jones being a woman and her student being a boy.

Equality under the law. Theoretically it exists, but practically it doesn't. That is because our culture still has a long way to go before we recognize that boys can be raped and victimized and preyed upon by adult women, just as really as it can happen with a girl and an adult man.

There is talk now that the boy's family is dropping the charges, as they want him to get on with his life. He's on his way to college. I am sure it has been painful and embarrassing for him, and I don't judge what he and his family decide to do. That is their call.

We as women have made great strides in achieving equality with men, in a positive way. We need to truly make things equal for everyone, however. Adult women need to be held to the same standard as men in cases where children are involved. And Jones desperately needs some male friends her own age.

Susan

Golden Girl Gabby

Gabby Douglas just became the first African-American woman to earn the Olympic gold in both individual and all around gymnastic events. The sixteen-year-old is, like anyone who gets to the Olympics, an inspiring story of hard work and dedication. Yet there are some who are more than a little preoccupied with her hair. Her hair. Really.

I had a dream last night which starred a person who used to make me feel bad about myself. I gave him both the permission and the power to do so. The dream was vivid enough that when I awoke this morning, I had those old sad and bad feelings that used to be a part of my everyday life. I've had my coffee, which always makes me feel better. Reality has set in, my reality that I don't live that way anymore, and that the one who used to have so much power over how I felt about myself is now, just somebody that I used to know.

I love my hair. My straight white woman hair. It is healthy and strong. I have been a brunette, which is what I am naturally, a blonde and a redhead, and right now I am all three of those things rolled into one. I've had hair almost to my waist, super short and everything in between. I don't know if I will ever let it go completely gray, but both my mother and my maternal grandmother had beautiful silver hair, so maybe one day in the far distant future. I used to have this ongoing battle with my hair. I got the idea when I was a young girl that there was something wrong with straight hair, and there were days I stood in front of the mirror in the morning trying to make my hair do things it didn't want to do. I have a cowlick in the front, and one at the crown. I remember the day I decided to just allow my hair to do what I wanted it to do, and I asked my hair stylist what kind of cut would work, and the rest is history. That was when I began to love my hair, which led to my eventually loving all the parts of myself, which makes what I experienced last night nothing but a bad dream.

The hair industry in our country is big business, with a vested interest in keeping us feeling bad about ourselves so we will spend more money. Our hair isn't thick enough or thin enough or straight enough or curly enough or shiny enough or long enough. Enough is enough.

The hair of African American women is even more complicated, with messages being sent that they must have it straightened to look professional or polished which is just shorthand for look more like white woman hair. Really.

Of course, hair has its importance. It is a woman's crowning glory and all that. But it is a trivial matter, or it should be, in the grand scheme of things. We women who should be supporting Douglas, who should be applauding her accomplishments, who should feel inspired by her, we are the ones who are talking about her hair. It's not the MEN. It's us. For all the advancements we females have made over the years, we still continue to hold ourselves back with our strange preoccupation with how we look, with our cattiness and meanness toward one another. We are sisters, every one of us who is female on this planet.

Gabby Douglas is beautiful, inside and out. She must be a young woman with an unusual amount of gumption to get to where she is today, and she certainly needs it to rise above the pettiness of those who are preoccupied with her hair. Her hair. Really.

Susan