Now that I have this safe and new and amazing life, my awareness has grown beyond day-to-day basic survival.
I see and read stories that inspire or confuse or bewilder or distress me in a way that has always drawn my attention, but for which I could spare no energy.

It is not that I am disconnected to the world.
One of the ways that I survived is by seeking outside interests and volunteering as much as possible, within the constraints of that old life.

I feel a need to comment on these renewed connections, although they are not essential to my continuing health, recovery and just plain general forward movement in my life.

Or, perhaps they are.

So, anyway, CoolCat suggested a new blog.
He is rarely wrong, so here goes...something.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Poverty

I like Mark Bittman.  He writes excellent books and he uses what he knows to help other people to do more than cook intelligently.

I like Mark Bittman because he gives more than a passing thought to what it means to be a responsible citizen of our planet.

This is only one example that has sent me on the one more journey to knowledge, understanding and hope, and not just because I live and work in this aspect of living.

New York Times
Mark Bittman
What We're Reading Now
http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/what-were-reading-now-4/?_r=0#more-5163

Holding orange in my heart

Native News Network
Time to bring orange shirt day
http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/time-to-bring-orange-shirt-day-september-30-to-indian-country.html

I am not ready for this year, because this is the first year.  I will be ready next September 30th.

The article:
WILLIAMS LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Phyllis Webstad's grandmother took her to buy a new outfit for her first day of school. Even though she was only six years old, her grandmother allowed Phyllis to pick out a shirt to wear to school. Part of the outfit, she selected was an orange shirt. Excited about attending school, she wore the orange shirt with pride.

She was to wear the orange shirt only one day at school – the first day. She never saw her orange shirt again.

    “The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't matter, how no cared and how I felt I was worth nothing,” reflects Webstad decades later about her experiences at the Indian residential school.

    “All of us little children were crying and no one cared.”

Phyllis, along with others First Nations children who attended residential schools, were stripped of their own clothing and made to wear uniforms furnished to them.

The military-like Indian residential schools for were to First Nations Native students were what Indian boarding schools were to American Indian students in the United States.

Removing Native children from their families and putting them in government – and sometime religion – run residential – or boarding schools – in the guise of "killing the Indian, saving the man" was federal policy both in Canada and the United States that continued for close to a century.

Most of the Native children were not allowed to see their parents or families for months – and some even years. The intention was to strip Native children of their "Indianness."
It is a dark chapter among Native people.

So much so, one elder in Canada refers to September as "crying month" because of the history associated with September being the month children were removed from their homes.

    “I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further than the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don't matter. Even with all the work I've done!”

September 30th has been declared Orange Shirt Day annually in Canada, in recognition of the harm the residential school system did to children's sense of self-esteem and wellbeing, and as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that everyone around us matters.

Among First Nations the theme on t-shirts this year is "Every Child Matters." Even if time may not allow you to have a printed shirt with this theme on it, it is a great time for all of Indian country to wear an orange shirt as a reminder of the pain it represented our ancestors that lingers even to today.

posted September 26, 2013 1:10 am edt

Saudi cleric says women who drive risk damaging their ovaries

Saudi cleric says women who drive risk damaging their ovaries

RIYADH (Reuters) - A conservative Saudi Arabian cleric has said women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children with clinical problems, countering activists who are trying to end the Islamic kingdom's male-only driving rules.

A campaign calling for women to defy the ban in a protest drive on October 26 has spread rapidly online over the past week and gained support from some prominent women activists. On Sunday, the campaign's website was blocked inside the kingdom.

In an interview published on Friday on the website sabq.org, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Lohaidan said women aiming to overturn the ban on driving should put "reason ahead of their hearts, emotions and passions".

Reuters earlier wrongly identified him as Sheikh Saleh bin Mohammed al-Lohaidan, a member of the Senior Council of Scholars, one of the top religious bodies in the birthplace of Islam.

By contrast, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Lohaidan, the person quoted in the sabq.org report, is a judicial adviser to an association of Gulf psychologists.

His comments reflect the extent of opposition to women driving among some conservatives in Saudi Arabia.

"If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards," he told Sabq.

"That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees," he said.

He did not cite specific medical studies to support his arguments.

The ban on women driving is not backed by a specific law, but only men are granted driving licenses. Women can be fined for driving without a license but have also been detained and put on trial in the past on charges of political protest.

Sheikh Abdulatif Al al-Sheikh, the head of the morality police, told Reuters a week ago that there was no text in the documents making up sharia, or Islamic law, that barred women from driving.

King Abdullah has pushed some cautious reforms aimed at expanding women's freedoms in Saudi Arabia, including opening more employment opportunities for them, but he has not addressed the issue of driving.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by William Maclean and Kevin Liffey)