Talk about AB230, the comprehensive sex education bill, was all over the TV yesterday! Even your humble Siren got in the mix as a guest, with my pal Annette Magnus, of Planned Parenthood of Southern Nevada, on Ralston Reports. Likewise, Annette made appearances on Fox 5 in the morning as well as The Agenda.
Taking it to the airwaves!
“Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. Tears aren’t enough. Expressions of sympathy aren’t enough. Speeches aren’t enough. We’ve cried enough. We’ve known enough heartbreak. What we’re proposing is not radical. It’s not taking away anyone’s gun rights. It’s something that, if we are serious, we will do.” ~ President Obama, speaking today.
I haven’t forgotten, and so, knowing that I’m likely pissing into the wind, I will be contacting my Congress Critters.
But shit. 92% of us are in favor universal background checks and yet, Republicans are vowing to filibuster anything. I despair.
And honestly, I don’t understand this at all.
Doing nothing would be akin to pissing on the graves of those little children and anyone felled by gun violence, and spitting in the faces of those left behind.
(And no, I’m not allowing comments on this post. I just had to get this off my chest and have no fucking interest in getting into another gun debate.)
I was asked to represent Reno Freethinkers at an interfaith service this evening at the University of Nevada to honor the victims, families and first responders in Newtown, Connecticut. Many faiths were represented tonight (Catholic, Christian (fundamentalist evangelical, mainstream Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu and Baha’i), and me, the non-believer. I appreciated the opportunity. Certainly among the grieving are people like me. It was a moving night, particularly the prayer of mourning sung by the Baha’i celebrant. I didn’t understand the words, but the emotion came right through.
My prepared remarks:
I don’t know who wrote this, but I’d like to share it with you today.
I have seen a mother at a cot – so I know what love is;
I have looked into the eyes of a child – so I know what faith is;
I have seen a rainbow – so I know what beauty is;
I have felt the pounding of the seas – so I know what power is;
I have planted a tree – so I know what hope is;
I have heard a wild bird sing – so I know what freedom is;
I have seen a chrysalis burst into life – so I know what mystery is;
I have lost a friend – so I know what sorrow is;
I have seen a star-decked sky – so I know what infinity is;
I have seen and felt all these things – so I know what life is.Today we come together in our humanity. Whether we are Believers, Agnostics, or Atheists, we stand here in our humanness and grief. We are drawn together by the need to be close to each other, to collectively honor those no longer with us, and to hold in our hearts those whose hearts and lives have been shattered in a million pieces. We come together today to comfort each other as well.
Centuries ago the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote:
“In the presence of death, we must continue to sing the song of life. We must be able to accept death and go from its presence better able to bear our burdens and to lighten the load of others. Out of our sorrows should come understanding. Through our sorrows, we join with all of those before who have had to suffer and all of those who will yet have to do so. Let us not be gripped by the fear of death. If another day be added to our lives, let us joyfully receive it, but let us not anxiously depend on our tomorrows. Though we grieve the deaths of our loved ones, we accept them and hold on to our memories as precious gifts. Let us make the best of our loved ones while they are with us, and let us not bury our love with death.”
What happened in Newtown is unimaginable, and yet it is real. It happened. As a parent, I cannot imagine it. For those of us with no belief in a comforting god or an afterlife, death does indeed have a sting. For we do not believe we shall see our loved one again; we do not think they have gone to a better place. They are asleep, never to awaken. They have been taken from us.
All we can do is miss them. And remember them. They live on as long as they live in our hearts. All we can do is gather close and love those of us who remain.
This is the bargain we make. We put our hearts out there in love and friendship because the reward is love and friendship in return. And sometimes, because that is just the way life is, our hearts will be broken in ways we will never understand.
I’d like to close with another poem:
When I die, give what is left of me to children.
If you need to cry, cry for your brothers walking beside you.
Put your arms around anyone, and give them what you need to give me.
I want to leave you with something, something better than words or sounds.
Look for me in the people I have known and loved.
And if you cannot live without me, then let me live on in your eyes, your mind and your acts of kindness.
You can love me most by letting hands touch hands and letting go of children that need to be free.
Love does not die, people do.
So when all that is left of me is love…..
Give me away…..
The following is a guest post in the form of an open letter from Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens to Ann Coulter after this tweet during last night's Presidential debate.
Dear Ann Coulter,
Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?
Yeah, I lived them.
I was thirteen when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the moon. It was a Sunday, and at the time Mom was a real estate agent. Sundays were Open House day and dragging us along to her open houses was pretty much standard operating procedure. But on that particular Sunday, we thought it would be different. Surely, we were going to stay home, right?
Not so much.
For reasons that escaped me at the time, and puzzle me even now, Mom loaded my brother and me into our VW bug and headed out to a vacant tract home in the middle of a Kaneohe subdivision. I guess somehow she thought that someone, after witnessing the most incredible and historic event of our lives, was then going to think, “Well, that was interesting, but it’s time to go house-hunting!”
Nevertheless, Mom did make one concession to the historicity of the day. For the first (and only) time, she hauled our portable black and white television to the open house, plunked it in the middle of the furniture-less living room and let us watch.
My brother and I lay flat on our stomachs to watch the grainy footage. We were enthralled.
I was too young to remember John F. Kennedy’s famous “let’s go to the moon” speech, but at thirteen I was old enough to know that we had done something amazing.
And my brother? Total space geek.
My brother’s 12th birthday, November 1969.
Yes, that is a Rocket Ship with a Man on the Moon birthday cake. Later, my brother built a 5-foot tall model of the Saturn V rocket which was prominently displayed alongside the color TV in our living room for many months. That is, until he thought it would be a good idea to try to launch it.
And we still love space. Now I’m married to a guy who is a NASA nerd. We’ve got the NASA channel and Sweetie follows every mission. In 2010 Sweetie and I made our pilgrimage to Mecca, commonly known as Kennedy Space Center, or if you prefer, Disneyland for Geeks.
Getting our geek on
Snoopy and I go way back.
Let’s keep it going. Let’s make sure other kids get to share in that same sense of wonder.
Manned missions to Mars? Oh yeah, baby!
The Wall Street Journal regarding the outbreak of Ebola in Uganda notes:
The outbreak started and spread first within one family, said Rukia Nakamate, a spokeswoman for the Ugandan Ministry of Health. Initially, locals believed the illnesses were the result of an attack of evil spirits rather than one of the deadliest viruses known to man, and took the patients to a Christian religious shrine for prayers, where the first two victims died, she said.
“Some of the victims came into contact with many people, including churchgoers,” she said.
The New York Times article’s author appears to have crafted a dumb-downed rewrite (can we say plagiarism?) of the far more informative WSJ piece and in doing so chose to leave this interesting factoid out (even though it could be germane to the spread of the deadly virus).
“Never forget this either: we humans did this. The discovery of this new particle, and the vast potential it has, was all because we’re curious. This huge machine, the LHC, was built solely because we wanted to find things out, and some people had the vision to fund it and build it. When we wish to explore, when we wish to see what’s over the next hill, wonders unfold before us.”
Read his whole post here.
I’ve been following this story for quite a while.
Doctors and the company are now trying to understand the scope of the problem, but experts say it is extremely distressing because the wires are particularly dangerous to remove and also may pose dangers if they are left in.
Luckily for me, my leads aren’t St. Jude’s and I only have a dual-lead pacer, not an ICD. Still, I count on my leads to do the job they are supposed to, so when I hear about issues with pacemaker leads, my ears really perk up. While a pacemaker is easily replaced every seven years or so, the leads are not. When a pacemaker is put in, the ends of the leads are embedded in the heart. It takes several weeks for the heart to seal over the ends of the leads with scar tissue, but once that has happened, the leads should be good to go for a long, long time. Removing defective leads is a big deal, and in fact, if leads need to be replaced, more often than not, the old leads are just left in place to avoid damage to the heart where they are embedded.
I’ll be out planet gazing tonight. I was able to snap some blurry (but still distinct enough) photos of Jupiter and her four largest moons last week, and I’ll have my camera out again tonight. We’ll see how it goes.
What a set of pipes she had. I loved listening to her, and most especially, I loved dancing to her. When this song came out I was recently divorced and trying to find myself again. I’ve always loved dancing and it was only natural that in those years I found my way back to the dance floor. In the car, on the dance floor, or just dancing around the house, this song made me so happy. It still does.
Rest in peace, Whitney.
