World YWCA Caribbean Regional Training A Success!

I wanted to share with you how the Caribbean Regional Training went...The World YWCA trains young women leaders!

Caribbean YWCAs Commit to Intergenerational approach to ending violence against women and ending HIV

The Caribbean YWCAs Regional Training Institute (RTI) held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from May 24-29, 2009 concluded with strong recommendations for strategies to address violence against women and the spread of HIV in the region.

Fifty Caribbean women and young women, representing women leaders from diverse walks of life, came together to strategise ways to unite and end violence against women and the spread of HIV in the Caribbean. Hosted by the YWCA of Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean YWCAs RTI adopted a two-year regional focus strategy addressing violence against women, HIV and AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The strategy has three key main elements:

1) Leadership and Capacity Building: affirmed importance of young women’s leadership and an intergenerational approach, as well capacity building
2) Advocacy and Services: placed emphasis on advancing human rights for all women and girls, comprehensive prevention, provision of safe and inclusive spaces
3) Good Governance and Accountability: confirmed the importance of transparency and accountability, good internal leadership and emphasis on need for monitoring and evaluation

Related stories to be located on the website are:

* Female and male condom training challenges Caribbean YWCAs RTI participants
* Caribbean YWCAs begin journey to create safe and secure communities
* Power of young women leaders evident in the Caribbean YWCAs
* Fundraising Caribbean Style: Caribbean YWCAs RTI
* First Lady of Trinidad and Tobago to host Caribbean YWCAs RTI participants
* World YWCA prepares for Caribbean Regional Training Institute: ‘Caribbean Women Creating Safe and Secure Communities

Women's Health, and access.

For those of you who care about women having access to safe reproductive health choices, including access to safe abortion, you may consider donating $20 in memory of Dr. George Tiller, the doctor who was shot dead in his church on Sunday in Kansas.

Memorial funds have been set up at NNAF NNAF and the WRRAP Organization WWRAP both of which help women who can't afford to pay for an abortion. It will be the George Tiller Fund, also, a memorial has been set up with the group, Medical Students for Choice MS4C

I just donated 35$ to ppkm, planned parenthood of Kansas/Mo. PPKM

Southern Cross

Got out of town on a boat goin' to southern islands.
Sailing a reach before a followin' sea.
She was makin' for the trades on the outside,
And the downhill run to Papeete Bay.

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.
We got eighty feet of the waterline.
Nicely making way.
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you.
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away.

Think about how many times I have fallen,
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'.
What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.


----

On hot days (today it was 32C here in Geneva) and when I am homesick, I listen to this song, by Jimmy Buffett (or CSNY). I am missing Seattle today really badly.

I miss all the dock people and my boat.

And I wish I was there.


Ah Seattle.


Cheers.

things I learned in Paris

1. Do not stay in a youth hostel at age 40.
2. Coffee is really great there.
3. cheap flights (less than 100CHF total, taxes and all) are a good idea unless you get home past 12 midnight on a 'school night'.
4. The Catacombs are amazing.
5. Jim Morrison's grave is jammed in between a bunch of others. Alain Bashung is also buried there, with about 200 other famous people (Pere LaChaisse cemetary): Oscar Wilde, Moliere, Modigliani, Heloise, Getrude Stein, the Laliques, and tons of others.
6. Bring your camera charger and adapter.
7. Don't wear clogs for 3 days of walking.
8. Paris is a huge city.
9. The view from the Eiffel Tower is great as is the view from the Arab World Museum.
10. There is so much to see and smell and taste there that 3 days is not enough time!

Paris....

Home in Geneva after week in the USA

Today's flight home was short - only 7 hours from DC.

It is so nice to be home to Loki, to see Becky and to sit on the plane with Marie-Claude, coming from the YWCA USA annual meeting.

And on top of that today I rented out my garage space for the next 2+ years! Waiting to hear if the houseboat in Seattle is rented yet - had an open house last week and waiting for new tenants to apply and get papers back...if you know anyone who wants to rent a houseboat for a year in Seattle for $1300 a month let me know.

Ok now on to unpacking, laundry, meeting notes and work tonight a bit - just slept all day.

A random photo to share:

World YWCA Day is April 24 - Donate Today

Hi everyone!

World YWCA Day is April 24, Friday.

World YWCA Day on April 24 is designed to connect YWCAs to the collective power of a movement that changes the lives of women and girls worldwide. The theme for this year's World YWCA Day is ‘Women Creating a Safe World’. The theme builds on the upcoming World YWCA Council 2011 in Zurich, Switzerland that will focus on the importance of personal and community security for women and young women and will explore the links between violence and HIV and AIDS.

Gumbonzvanda urges the YWCA movement to use World YWCA Day to honour women leaders, share skills with local YWCAs, and donate to the Power to Change Fund. “ On World YWCA Day, we are saying it is possible to have a different world; where humanity is celebrated, where human dignity is a lived experience, everywhere, everyday.

The video message is a ‘great communication tool’ for member associations to share on World YWCA Day says World YWCA Fundraising Co-ordinator Lynn Sorrentino. “YWCAs around the world can share the message of the General Secretary with their members and partners. They can use the video as an introduction for their Around the World Breakfasts, or as an introduction for other fundraising events,” reflects Sorrentino. “The video message reaffirms the purpose of the World YWCA. It is a great tool to share with new members and potential partners, and the video message reminds staff and volunteers of the importance of the global work of the YWCA movement."

LINK TO VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/user/WorldYWCA

DONATE:
http://www.worldywca.net/donate/index.php

Thank you!

McCain's campaign manager and Teh Gays

HMMM:

Speaking publicly for one of the first times since the end of the presidential campaign, John McCain's campaign manager Steve Schmidt painted a dire portrait of the state of the Republican Party, arguing that the GOP has largely been co-opted by its religious elements.

"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," Schmidt declared. "And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party."

[snip]

"If you reject [gay marriage] on religious grounds, I respect that," he said. "I respect anyone's religious views. However, religious views should not inform the public policy positions of a political party because... when it is a religious party, many people who would otherwise be members of that party are excluded from it because of a religious belief system that may be different. And the Republican Party ought not to be that. It ought to be a coalition of people under a big tent."

Earlier, in the question-and-answer session, Schmidt said he conveyed a similar message to Senator McCain, though he declined to elaborate on what kind of advice was given.

"My views were known inside the campaign on this," he said.
[snip]

Indeed, the shrinking of the GOP tent, he prophesied, was due not to one individual actor but from a quasi-religious political brand that was "off-putting to many people." That held true whether in the case of Terry Schaivo, which Schmidt called "disastrous for the Republican Party," or gay marriage.

"If a party is seen as anti-gay than that is injurious to its candidates in states like California, Oregon or Washington or New Jersey or New York, increasingly even in states like Virginia and the mid-south," he said. "And to be a national party we need to be competitive in the northeast, for instance. I will argue that our party was a richer party when we had people, by no means conservatives but republicans, like Christie Whitman and George Pataki and all the members of Congress who have since gone extinct."

Seriously. I want to cancel myspace.

I have to rant about this to my technical friends.... I would like to cancel the whole webspace that is the myspace domain and company etc etc etc....I am cleaning off the inter-webs of some of my crap including the stupid myspace account and just read this cancel info:

If it’s not working at all, try sending an email to help@support.myspace.com Let them know what the issue is, and since you’re trying to delete your account I know a salute will be required. To create and send a salute here’s what you’ll need to do:

# •Create a handwritten sign with the word MySpace.com and Include your MySpace Friend/Profile ID number. (Your friend ID is the number after “&friendID=" in your profile's web address/URL. If you can’t login, you can get this info by clicking on your profile)
# •Get a picture taken of you holding the handwritten sign. Be sure the photo is clear and the handwriting is easy to read. If we can’t read the information and see your face clearly, then we will ask for another salute. (If you do not have access to a digital camera, please consider the accessibility of disposable cameras and digital film processing available at most drug stores)
# •After you take the pic, send us an email to help@support.myspace.com with the salute attached. You can also provide us with the web address/URL where the image has been uploaded. A salute is used as a means to identify and confirm ownership. If there are no photos on your profile that can be used to confirm you own it, we won’t be able to provide you with login information or take action on the account. If that’s the case, you’ll need to create a new profile. Sorry, but we take user privacy very seriously.

WTF? WTF? WTF?

How about since I logged in, canceled, agreed to cancel with that little button, went to email, logged in, clicked a cancel link, confirmed it, that maybe you just actually delete my account then and there...maybe wiping the servers a couple times a day and then in that process it's gone. ARGH!!!

I need to get back to reading about piracy on the NATO site and stop trying to clean the inter-webs to make space out of wasted myspace.

Madagascar

I work for a women's organisation and we have 'sisters' in a fledgling organisation in Madagascar. I wanted to share with you this info.

VMLF (Vondrona Miralenta ho an'ny Famandrosoana - a women's association that promotes women's participation in politics in Madagascar, has written the following statement to encourage the "...adopt(ion of) sound political practices; we must change in order to move towards a society that is more progressive; more tolerant; and more equitable."

Read on for facts on Magagascar, a country slightly twice as ig as Arizona; a country in Africa very rich in many resources....read what the African Feminist Forum thinks, and what you can do to help out if you so chose.

First the call from VMLF:

CALL FROM VMLF
Learn lessons from History; Resolve the crisis; Reconstruct in the short term

We, members of Vondrona Miralenta ho an’ny Fampandrosoana (VMLF), association working to promote women’s increased political participation in Madagascar, are outraged and grieving because our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and friends had been slaughtered.

We express our deepest sorrow and concern about the loss of human lives and the deadlock in the life of our nation. In the face of this tragic bloodshed, we affirm that it is utterly inappropriate to take sides with any particular force, and we call on all stakeholders to uphold the Nation’s interest over any party consideration.

Therefore, to the best of our knowledge and belief, and with as much serenity as possible, we declare that the forces which had been fighting over the last few weeks share the responsibility for the present disaster.

The recent history of Madagascar has demonstrated that political practices characterized by power struggles among politicians; democratic deficit; corrupted governance; social injustice; the protection of private interests at the expense of public interest; and, the instrumentalization of the population through demagogic propositions, have led our country into successive crises. It is the same process which had brought about the political crises of 1972, 1991, 2002, and the current crisis.

We are determined to contribute to change in political practices and governance in Madagascar, and we affirm that the following principles must be the minimum basis for the code of conduct of political leaders, whether they are in power or in the opposition:
Renounce declarations that provide false information and create confusion, fear or unreasoned hatred among the population;
Listen to the minority(ies), out of respect for the freedom of opinion, even if one has been elected by a majority (which always remains relative anyway);
Respect the separation between the management of public affairs, and religious and private economic activities.

The resolution of the present crisis requires the immediate creation of a totally neutral and independent body that will be tasked with the establishment of a transitional institution that will be in charge of:
Undertake the necessary reforms of the Constitution and Electoral Code;
Design mechanisms that can guarantee the separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, in order to prevent attempts to accumulate power in the hands of a single individual or party;
Ensure the effectiveness of the decentralization process, by sharing responsibilities with each and every decentralized entity and providing them with the means to discharge these responsibilities;
Prepare and organize elections, which will start as soon as feasible at the municipal level and end with the presidential elections;
Ensure gender equality, that is an equitable and balanced representation of women and men in decision making at all levels, in order to compensate for our slow progress (Madagascar ranks at the bottom end of SADC in terms of the percentage of women in Parliament)

For all these deaths not to have been in vain, we must adopt sound political practices; we must change in order to move towards a society that is more progressive; more tolerant; and more equitable.

Consider the statement from the African Feminist Forum:

African Feminist Forum

STATEMENT TO THE AFRICAN UNION COMMISSION ON THE BLOODSHED AND POLITICAL CRISIS IN MADAGASCAR

We, the undersigned members of the African Feminist Forum, are grieving with our Malagasy sisters, following the tragic bloodshed of 7 February 2009 in Antananarivo.

We join Malagasy women in condemning the use of deadly means of repression against unarmed demonstrators. The use of violence in order to silence dissenting voices is becoming a recurrent feature of political crises in many African countries: in the DRC, Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe and now in Madagascar. This has gone hand in hand with gross violations of peoples’ rights to be free from fear and hunger, together with the continued marginalization of women in political processes and decision making.

As African women striving to promote the accountability of our leaders to their peoples, respect for human rights, and a culture of peace in our continent, we are deeply concerned about the growing number of violent and militarized responses to popular demand for democratic change in governance, and for getting out of abject poverty. We strongly support our Malagasy sisters’ call for sea change in political and economic governance across the African Continent, including the equal representation of women at all levels of decision making.

As a first step in this direction, we urge the African Union Commission

Ø to appoint a high-level African woman to be part of the team that will facilitate the resolution of the political crisis in Madagascar ;

Ø to ensure that regular consultations with Malagasy women and their organizations will take place during their mission to Madagascar ;

Ø to ensure the equal participation of Malagasy women and their organizations in the process for the resolution of the crisis, as well as in the subsequent political processes, including elections.

In solidarity with women in Madagascar, we stand ready to support the efforts of the African Union Commission towards a peaceful resolution of the political crisis, and the achievement of our common goal of ensuring that the values and principles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights will be translated into reality in the lives of all African women and men.

Consider the following blurb from the CIA World Factbook:
CIA Madagascar Info

"Having discarded past socialist economic policies, Madagascar has since the mid 1990s followed a World Bank- and IMF-led policy of privatization and liberalization. This strategy placed the country on a slow and steady growth path from an extremely low level. Agriculture, including fishing and forestry, is a mainstay of the economy, accounting for more than one-fourth of GDP and employing 80% of the population. Exports of apparel have boomed in recent years primarily due to duty-free access to the US. Deforestation and erosion, aggravated by the use of firewood as the primary source of fuel, are serious concerns. President RAVALOMANANA has worked aggressively to revive the economy following the 2002 political crisis, which triggered a 12% drop in GDP that year. Poverty reduction and combating corruption will be the centerpieces of economic policy for the next few years."

Write a note supporting the women of Madagascar to:

Diplomatic representation in the US:
chief of mission: Ambassador Jocelyn Bertin RADIFERA
chancery: 2374 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008
telephone: [1] (202) 265-5525, 5526
FAX: [1] (202) 265-3034
consulate(s) general: New York

And consider supporting these women in the following ways:

Send an email or donation supporting the women of Madagascar to:
The African Women's Development Fund: AWDF
To support the African Feminist Forum: AFF

- the AFF is part of AWDF:

The African Feminist Forum is hosted by the African Women’s Development Fund

Address: AWDF House, 78 Ambassadorial Enclave, East Legon, Accra, Ghana
Post: PMB CT 89, Cantonments, Accra, Ghana
Email: aff@awdf.org

Donations to the World YWCA for core programmes that support women globally:
World YWCA Donations
(DISCLAIMER: I work for the World YWCA so if that influences your decision to help that is fine but I want you all to know I am being transparent.)

Thank you for listening and I hope that things improve soon for the women in Madagascar.

Gardening at the White House

I am so excited about this!!!

I have squash plants (18 of them about 3 inches tall so far) and also have 40 or so little tomatoes starters about an inch tall. I live in an apartment but have good balcony space for a great garden soon! Loki Dog wishes I could grow hamburgers on the balcony, but tomatoes and squash will likely be it.

At any rate, on the garden front - I'll be excited to see the garden and the results both here and at the White house:

On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut. While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.

The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatilloes and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House carpenter who is a beekeeper will tend two hives for honey.

I come from a family where we always had a garden in the back yard.

Growing up, we had an orange and lemon tree that each produced a couple dozen each winter. Squash, lettuce, spinach, basil, tomatoes and peppers, pumpkins, plum trees, and other things. My dad grows stuff still on his little balcony now that he's moved out of the house he retired to 14 years ago. He had a huge garden there, with fruit trees and pecan trees (hundreds of pounds of those each year resulted in mailing of boxes to family several years in a row...)

I remember not eating spinach for 2 years because there was a worm in it once when my Mom and I were cleaning it. Yep, got over that when I finally realized organic means bugs and well, bugs like a little worm you can wash off is way healthier than fertilizers and pesticides and well, anything, made by Monsanto.

I love that we will have a White House veggie garden. :-) An yes it is an easy and cheap shot, but it's a mighty nice change over a veggie IN the White House.

Fish are breathing easier in Saginaw Bay

In one of her first actions as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson has ordered the Great Lakes office of EPA to stop negotiations with the Dow Chemical company — begun in the last days of the Bush administration — over controversial dioxin cleanup in the Saginaw Bay watershed.

Perhaps there will be some progress toward cleanup of dioxin sites like this. According to the article, "Dow Chemical’s Midland plant has contaminated 50 miles of the Saginaw Bay watershed with dioxin — one of the most potent cancer-causing chemicals known."

Glad that there is some progress happening in this direction. So are the fish and inverts that are still there (very few).

Wingnuts drive me batty, or, why I am glad I am not in the USA now, here's why...
Fri Mar 06, 2009

Good evening - it is 11 p.m. here in Geneva, Switzerland. I just got back from dinner at a little Chilean place with two co workers where we talked about trafficking (of arms, drugs and women); sex (current boy friends, past experiences, what our mothers think/thought); work (as usual); and the impressions of Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" left on each of us - as we approach International Womens Day Sunday March 8. More on why wingnuts drive me batty, and why I am glad I am not in the USA now, for reasons different than you may think, after the jump.

Today leaving work, Hillary Clinton's plane just landed at GVA. She is staying at the Intercontinental Hotel literally a ten minute walk from my work.

I was SO SO SO happy to see the news crews, security, police, and was smiling ear to ear "That is MY Secretary of State and she kicks ass!" was the grin I had on the bus all the way home. And I am GLAD she is here and represented the new administration in Sharm recently. Not sure about some of the topics discussed there, but, hey it is better than Condi on so many levels.

I was SO SO happy to meet up with my coworkers tonight to discuss some plans and how we can make things better at work in terms of tools and processes.

I was SO SO happy to talk freely about issues affecting women (there is a significant number of women trafficked every year - 4 million globally, last year alone... and you should be here in summer in Eaux Vives when so many young women are here via trafficking - it is disturbing in this town of so much wealth)....

I was SO SO glad to be able to talk about being a woman, hat sex means, what violence is, so openly with these women. To talk about what International Womens Day means to each of us and how empowered we are by our work - yet how much more work there is to be done. How can we help our sisters in Ethiopia, Sudan, DRC, Zimbabwe, Chile, NZ, New Guinea, and on the streets of the USA even? This is what is important to me.

I was SO SO glad to not have to worry about anyone around us being a wingnut. No Bill O'Reilly fans. No one in this little Chilean restaurant knew or cared about Rush Limbaugh. Certainly there are issues here with swastikas showing up as graffiti in Geneva. And there are wingnuts here too. But the good news is that my French is bad enough that I cannot understand it yet so I live in a temporary bubble (broken soon, as I start French class Tuesday).

Today I was glad to learn that Obama is going to work on that whole embryonic stem cell issue. That is good news. Makes me forget about the wingnuts for a while.

I am glad to be here though because there are so many issues that we deal with globally that are bigger than what the wingnut idiots in the USA spew about...judges being "activist" and as such the wingnuts threatening them in the USA? Glad I don't have to read it. Roland Burris? Rush Limbaugh? The liberal media crap? None of it makes its way to me unless I choose to read about it on dailykos. The crisis? Yes I am concerned - hell, my 401K I still have is worth literally 30% of what it was 2 years ago.

But here is the deal - very, very few people over here and in most of the world could give a rat's ass about what fundie conservative freaks in the USA think. People globally worry about food, shelter, money, birth control, war, water, corruption's impact, and so many other things. A few hundreds of thousands of crazy wingnuts, even those with crazy schools, those fighting to make creationism an issue in schools, those spewing hate and words they do not understand...well, they are irrelevant to quite a lot of people. Continue to fight their stupidity, but please fight for real things, do not fight just these idiots, please.

Keep up the good work kids, and look beyond. Look out. Treat the crooks as the petty people they are and work toward peace, justice, and rights for all.

OK off to bed now. Will check in tomorrow. I am so proud to be an American but also proud to be a citizen of the globe.

Love and peace and a smile to all of you here.

OLD Blog posts from my former blog, reposted here to share...

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Work email
Current mood: productive
Category: Web, HTML, Tech
I got this out of an article in the Seattle weekly and cracked up so had to share. This is exactly my job, in a nutshell, related to working at MSFT....

"E-mail at work is not about communication. It's about jockeying for position and distributing wisdom. I myself like to sprinkle in a few words that I've found to be useful in my own life, always with my own little humorous twist. As one of my more well-known e-mail signatures put it, "Who says you can't be gentle as you seize your inner divinity?" Slip the cliché in the back door, that's my motto.

If work e-mail does contain any actual content, it's usually along these lines: "Thank you for bringing to my attention the horrible disaster that will result from my continued inaction. In lieu of my actually doing anything, please accept this random assortment of meaningless buzz words, designed to make the people CC'd on this message think that I give a fuck about any of this shit: messaging framework, vision statement, granularity, POR, ROI, facetime, customer-centric, tasked with, pushback, metrics, rearchitected, mind share, branding perspective, outstanding deliverable, take it offline. Thanks!" Heck, you couldn't understand any of that stuff even if you wanted to, so why even try? Focus instead on the random bits of insight from self-help books that may show up in your colleagues' signature files. Because a word of light from the mouth of an enemy is worth two misguided words of your own."



Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Dif Eq
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Friends
Dif Eq - pronounced "Diff E.Q." in one word, like "diffyQ".

Tonight I was on the phone with a good friend of mine for several hours and she brought up Dif Eq.

Differential Equations.

While I normally relegate math and physics stuff to topics like baseball (you can teach almost all the fundamentals of physics in one baseball game) and talks with Roger (my marina friend who teaches higher math and wave physics at JMU)...tonight I had an insight that she provided - the Dif EQ of men and women.

Let’s define Differential and Equation first. Here are the definitions I am using for this blog:

Differential: Latin: [L. differre to carry apart] pertaining to a difference or differences.

Equation: 1. A set of properties, their intended actions and reactions with or without a given goal, and a possible and achievable solution if a goal is a presented.
Equation: 2. The act or process of equating or of being equated.

Men and women’s differentials are noted in many ways...I can think of differentials in ways...
Pertaining to differences in men and women.
Pertaining to differences in how we think, how we act, how we love, how we understand each other, how we interpret the world, how we become ourselves.
Pertaining to differences in our reactions to actions of others.

To carry apart...hmmm....to pick apart, to separate....to notice the differences. There are many obvious differences in men and women. The ones I am interested in are the ones that are not obvious to each party since they are so close to the heart. Why is it that our society encourages us to pick apart, carry apart these differences when at heart, all anyone wants is to be loved, to love, to be equal and to share a path that leads to the eventual goal of happiness and contentment? If the equation in life is to obtain a set of properties (the "happy, loved/loving, secure, peaceful" properties as a list to start with), how do we do the math when both parties are separate parts of the equation before the = sign?

What is the process of equating? What does it mean to be equal and to be a part of a bigger whole, especially if the underlying theme is "differential?" What about integrals? Being an integral part of someone’s existence?

I think that being able to understand calculus as "the area under the curve" (not the curve ball)....may mean that we strive to understand the arc of our curve, the area of our impact, our reach, on each other and the world. Perhaps this is why I studied biology and zoology, instead of mathematics.




Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Mark Harmon, Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Poster Porn of Mark Harmon, Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith Ain't All That Black, The Fresh Prince

LuAnn, Paula, Newton, Zoey, Loki and I were googling Mark Harmon tonight. The TV was on and I said something about him being a pool boy in some movie in the 80's.

Gotta love IMDB.com.

The movie starred Mark and Kirsti Alley and is called Prince of Bel Air, and is all the cheese you can think of- completely 80's SoCal. It is on netflix too. The reviews alone on IMDB are worth reading.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091791/

Paula said she thought Will Smith was in it, as it was a made for TV movie, and I said I did not think there were any black people in it- but we figured out we were thinking of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, not the pool boy movie. At this point Paula pointed out that she did not think of Will Smith as being all that black.

I don't know why but this whole conversation just deteriorated into Mark Harmon on a gay poster boy fan site and well we all just fell out about that and the fact that he's married to Pam Dawber. Mork and Mindy.

So there you have it. A blog about searching IMDB for Mark Harmon as a pool boy. The random stupid stuff I remember from 86 that does not involve Bon Jovi.



Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Personal Essence
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Today I had a great session with my therapist. We talked about a book called "Undefended Love" www.undefendedlove.com and we went over a chart called "Personality Preoccupations and Strategies". The discussion reinforced to me that my personality is a mix of caretaker, justice-seeker, self-improver, and how well I did nor did not mesh with others on an essential level.

The chart had a column that described the essential qualities sought in others based on my qualities and my personality preoccupations. In myself I value my generosity; in my essence, I seek out generous people. In myself, I want to be needed and seen as having integrity; in my essence, the qualities I seek in others as goodness, truth, and strength of character. In my essence, one thing I need to learn is that if I cannot always be a caretaker that I am still, in my soul, valuable and open-hearted.

The therapist and I talked about how there are a group of triads around these themes and personality preoccupations and that they are based on some fundamental emotions - fear, of failure; for example. Being resilient and able to manage emotional responses, express even negative emotions well, and getting closer to one's essence is at the heart of becoming a whole, functioning, mentally healthy adult with the capacity to love yourself and from that, bring love into your world.

Interestingly enough, this weekend I began working on some checklists and writings found at the web site, www.loveandforgive.org about very similar themes. This web site is where my new profile quotes come from.

The therapist and I talked about loving yourself too, in the sense of knowing yourself and what you will accept into your life and what is healthy for you to accept and to reject. We discussed where my lines are for accepting and rejecting. I will reject heinously abusive co-workers. I will reject people who lie or obfuscate. I will accept people on a path of "conscious choices" and I will accept people who forgive themselves and others and just "are". I can accept people up front as long as they are true and open.

Of all my friends (some here and some not), I can say that the people closest to me know what I am talking about in terms of valuing my "self" and trusting my essence so that I make the right decisions that will guide my path. Of my closest circle, every one of my friends has learned or is learning to be open-hearted and how to be true to themselves. I have friends who have called off weddings, who have sought to solve big world issues, take on big challenges in life, who are true spiritual guides, and who are amazingly powerful leaders, but they only got this way by being open and undefended, many after years of struggle.

At dinner last night a good friend and I talked about the concepts of the love and forgive website and how to gain acceptance and incorporate new learning .. a conscious decision to a new space emotionally. We talked about how not to be angry and the concepts of letting go. Forgiving people, even yourself, is about letting go of any negative emotion; you forgive the person for the action and you can differentiate between actions that come out of fear, shame, or rage. Having a ceremony to forgive is a good idea and cathartic but it must be true and open-hearted.

In any case, the web sites and book above are great tools and have been helpful to me so far, I hope to learn more. :-)

Cheers for now, 'nite all.

Meet Dubs, the New UW Husky Mascot

http://huskymascot.blogspot.com/

Baby Malamutes are so cute. :-)

Blackwater - and "Rights: Privatised Away" by David Cronin

If you read thru the archives you'll see that I wrote about Blackwater previously, and have been active in tracking what they, GreyStone and other firms do, in general.

Today I got this news brief via: IPS News....

RIGHTS: Violations Privatised Away
By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Feb 10 (IPS) - The intimate involvement of the private sector in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq received international attention in September 2007, when staff with the security firm Blackwater shot dead 17 civilians in the vicinity of Baghdad's Nisoor Square.

Though the U.S. has made the most extensive use of such companies in the history of modern warfare, it is in Europe where they originated. Back in 1967, senior political and military figures in Britain formed Watchguard International as a response to a left-wing coup in Yemen five years earlier. Now recognised as the world's first private security firm, its original intention was to shore up governments that could otherwise be overthrown.

Four decades later, the European Union is being urged to introduce regulations so that better oversight of private security firms can be guaranteed.

The article goes on to discuss how firms like Blackwwater have been operating in "a legal vacuum in Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo and Somalia during recent years. In Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority that took charge after the country's president Saddam Hussein was toppled, went so far as to issue an order providing immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for international contractors."

The government of Switzerland is discussing with various partners and consultants the idea of how private security firms can be monitored, and it looks like 17 countries are in the discussions which center on the concept that, "the granting of immunity from prosecution to certain private security firms as an "unjustified idea."" Human rights abuses such as those that happened at Abu Ghahib are at the center of these discussions.

Hélène Flautre, a French Green member of the European Parliament (MEP), suggested in the course of the debate that all EU military operations should have officers who liaise between soldiers and private firms that have been hired to provide particular services.

"Where subcontractors are allowed, this shouldn't represent an evasion of international humanitarian law," she said.

Michael Gahler, a German Christian Democrat MEP, said: "It is very important that we shouldn't give private security companies a law-free area. Employing them should not be a way of avoiding international law. That has to be the yardstick."

Just as presidents are above the law, neither should firms like Blackwater, their employees, or other private firms and contractors that commit crimes or human rights abuses.