The Guard was Down

You have seen today's headlines...dressed as a diplomatic guard a man asks to use the toilet facilities in the lobby of the World Food Center in Pakistan. Hidden behind his vulnerable sounding request was 16 pounds of explosives. As I first read the story I am thinking in normal human terms, this person has a primal need, we all have these needs, someone took pity on him. It takes me only a moment though, as touching as my first thoughts may have been, a guard had to let him pass.

People need to eat and five people who made it their job, their focus to feed displaced and hungry people in Pakistan, have been murdered. The survivors, those workers who live on and the neighbors of the compound in the surrounding residential area in Islamabad are traumatized. Whether the guard let his guard down or was part of the plan...all human relations are challenged by such treachery.

They were feeding the displaced, those who themselves have no accommodations of their own, those who are daily hungry. To the memory of those killed, in their honor, I paraphrase from the Epistle of James: Pure religion is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction...

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Government Run Programs - Good Track Record ?

The Monterey County Herald Newspaper has an OPINION page and here is a letter to the Editor and the Reading Public printed Tuesday, September 8, 2009 written by a citizen named Ron Phoebus and titled, which I believe the News Editor does, as:

" Government-run programs don't work "

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775—234 years later, it's broke! The government has also run: Social Security for 74 years—broke! Fannie Mae,71 years—broke! War on Poverty, for 45 years and more than $1 trillion wealth transfer to the "poor"—didn't work! Medicare/Medicaid, government-run for 44 years—broke! Freddie Mac after 39 years of government sponsorship—broke! Eight-hundred billion in pork filled TARP—not working. Cash for Clunkers: Here's a real winner. We (taxpayers) give ourselves $4,500 to buy a car from a factory we own (nationalization of GM and Chrysler), with money we have to borrow (from Communist China) at interest rates our great-grandchildren will still be paying. Most of the cars purchased were Japanese! What was the contribution to productivity? Now, there's another fine government program. And you want government-run health care? Go ahead, bet your life on the government's track record!

Thank you Mr. Phoebus. While Mr. Phoebus may use a few too many exclamation points, I imagine that he had to get a little excited to motivate himself to get involved in this debate. It's not that people like Mr. Phoebus are unwilling to pay for postage, pay into social security, loan money for housing, fight poverty in our midst, resuscitate the code blue economy, have safe economical cars on the road and a chicken in every pot too, but it's daunting to gather up those big numbers( how many zeros does 8 hundred billion have?) and summarize the history, all the while thinking about the hopes of each of those government program versus the actual reality. Of course he used all those exclamation points.

We do need reform in the laws and ethics of the Health Care Insurance Industry. Our hospitals need protection from misuse of services. Tort Reform...Eligibility Law, Health Care Portability...changes need to be made...but the government does not have to become the provider.

It does take getting a little excited, a little worked up to vest yourself in the public realm, to communicate or do anything about the events in the world around us. So in lieu of getting worked up myself, rather than staying focused on the work I have to do, and in an effort to thank this local stranger, I reprint his letter to the local news editor in hopes of multiplying his efforts by whatever number my modest readership represents.

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The Ishimwe Center a Home for Children in Rwanda

There is a Rescue Home in Ruhengeri, Rwanda that continues to expand in heartfelt response to the pressing needs of children. Ishimwe Center has decided it is time to expand their vision to care for more children without abandoning the primary goal to raise all the children as a family rather than in an institutional setting.

The nanny and the gardener and some of the family

The couple that began this mission are readying themselves to leave their employment and comfortable California home to move to Rwanda to be with the children full time. I hope you will visit their website and read the story and hopes of Rwandan born Faith Shaw and her English born husband, Roger.

Faith Shaw at the Home in Ruhengeri

Little Faith & Hope are part of the family

Recently Ishimwe Center nanny, Judith, came across a child whose parents had both died and then subsequently her remaining grandparent died. The center really was already full, and everyone agreed that no more children should be brought in, but what do you do when you see the face and know the needs of someone truly bereft? The orphaned child hung around the house of a neighbor but the neighbor truly couldn't provide care. Judith became aware of this child when she visited the neighbor. She found herself returning to visit and check on the child and saw that the child was suffering from a skin disease.

As Faith and Roger wrote:

“We had told Judith not to take any more children, but
perhaps we didn't drive the point home and after all she has a soft heart and
was face to face with the suffering. She brought the child to the Rescue Home,
thinking it was a girl about 4 or 5 years old. Later she discovered it was a
boy. When she told us, we also did not want to send him away.

Furthermore, Judith told us that the boy had a sister, one year
older and now struggling alone, but she had only dared to bring one child. We
decided not to break up the remnant of the family and sent Judith back to rescue
the sister. Now both are living at the Rescue Home. The girl (left) is called
Ishimwe (what a great name! So that's what the Ishimwe Center is all about!) and
the boy is called Niyonkuru (or Christian).”

Ishimwe & Niyonkuru

Faith has traveled to Rwanda each year to stay with the children and the people hired to care for them. Roger also goes when his vacation time has allowed it. This March they were able to buy 4 acres of raw hillside land on the outskirts of Kigali. You can read more about what they hope to build and how they plan to both offset running costs and help integrate the children into the local community, by raising and growing food, and building a computer learning center, a day care center and a multi-purpose hall.

I met Faith at a fundraiser a few years ago where she had been hired as a translator. All my encounters with Faith and Roger have been a joy and I will be sorry to have my new friends physically so far away, but the joy of visits will be replaced with the joy of knowing people who are inspired and stretching themselves in love. I will continue to enjoy the energy, peace and fragrance that flow out of their purpose and commitment.

Flavia & Ruka are part of the family too.

Go check out the website of Ishimwe Center and see if it doesn't make you smile.

Thanks for visiting me. I always enjoy your questions and comments.

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Classic Cars in Carmel Clunkers ? No Way.

It was a little chilly out, August 13th, and I had lots of other draws on my attention, but I did snap a few of the classic cars that were driving in the Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance. Capturing moving cars was a section in my new camera book I hadn't read yet. Why post them here on my Write Purpose Blog? Well, I'm just glad that these automobiles were not deemed clunkers!

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This one had some trouble tracking the lane. Must have been a bit of work getting out to Big Sur and back.

This one apparently took best of show...it is a 1937 Horsch 853 Voll & Ruhrbeck sport cabriolet. It usually lives in Sparks Nevada. Can you imagine it got shipped out to the Kahleefohrnya coast!

My favorite of the parade and I didn't get the picture I wanted.

That's all folks.

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Cash for Clunkers?

It's not that I haven't been writing, it's that I haven't been posting here much. I have been doing a lot of reading. There is so much to pay attention to these days.

In my family it was a given that you took care of things and made them last and reused and recycled and preserved things, so the cash for clunkers program goes against the grain for me.

I saw a comment on a news article that really summed it all up for me:

I hope "Robertshaw: 8/8/2009 2:11:00 AM " doesn't mind that I share his thoughtful words with whatever few people read my blogs, because I think he has it right.

The trade-in cars are being characterized as disgusting, beat-up, rusted-out,pollution-spewing, smoke-billowing, coughing, belching pigs; running only on three out of eight cylinders; guzzling the bulk of the North American refined petroleum supply; and posing a danger to neighboring motorists owing to their utterly dilapidated state of repair, the precariousness of their baling-wire and
duct-tape fasteners, and the parts which consequently are falling off the cars and onto the road -- when, in truth, most of these so-called "clunkers that shouldn't be on the road" aren't doing too much worse than their brand new counterparts gas-mileage wise, are more solidly built, offer greater protection for their occupants, have a good deal of serviceable life left on them, and eventually provide good, used parts to others who are trying to extend the lives of THEIR cars. Not only does the so-called "cash for clunkers" program benefit only those who are able to afford to buy new cars and the dealerships which sell them, it also punishes the poor and others who are trying to practice thriftiness and good stewardship by trying to get the most life from their cars and who rely on these affordable, used parts to keep their cars running. Under this horrible program, these parts are destroyed so that no one else can benefit from them. Those lacking a car but who cannot afford a brand new one -- or who have no business buying a new car and who instead should be doing wiser things with the money -- are not able to buy any of these "clunkers" which typically have years of good life and service left on them. These now are destroyed -- again in the name of taking these "Dracula monsters on wheels" off the road. It is unwise, a crime, a waste!

Thank you again, citizen Shaw.
Our tax dollars at work?

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Culture Bandits

Some of us are more impacted visually than others, but the visual environment effects all of us. Culture and environment are inextricably entwined. Companies that make money without care for the culture they create can only survive if we feed our nickels and dimes into their pockets.

I like the gas station in town, it's actually full service and the guys that work there are kind and helpful. What I don't like is the advertisements in the window of the mini-mart.

Full Throttle Blue Demon is apparently a COKE creation and the 2 foot by 3 foot poster ad is uninspiring to say the least. Pair that with a Skoal "Bandit" ad and you have a picture of the confused way the commercial community lauds the wrong guys. When people go out and act like demons and bandits we lament their behavior...we do don't we? Why is good light wasted on bad guys?

I say vote with your pocketbook. If all of us resist buying products that are in some way not good for us, then there will be enough of us to make a difference. The culture you impact will be your own.

Night time Journal March 11, 2009

It's March 11th, 2009 and the 32nd anniversary of our meeting each other.

It's been noisy at our little cottage. Perhaps I'm sensitive to it of late. Purposing to eat less and more carefully takes energy and is some transitory stress. I have to plan more what to eat and can't work at something else up until the moment I'm truly hungry.

I don't know why I'm not asleep, except that it's quiet now and I'm enjoying listening to the night. I didn't pick up this journal with anything particular that I need to write about. Early this evening I reviewed a number of essays that I had written back in Sebastopol, before I was ill in 2003. I see that my mind was honed and pressing to communicate. I'm glad to be well again.

Some days seem like an extended juggling act; one where the balls, once thrown, enter an orbit of unknown duration and so one presses on handling other tasks while knowing that that there are numerous balls ( and maybe a few other objects) destined toward us that will require our rapid response at some unknown point in the future...like right now, or later, or later, or now.

Mark has been reading about FDIC bank insurance being depleted. So what little money we might have, we might not have? This doesn't seem like good bedtime reading to me, it's a hefty thought to juggle...how long is it's full return orbit? I think I will juggle the full moon peeking in both sides of the skylight curtain instead. No one can ever know the future. Can we in any real way prepare? I think I will just juggle living as rightly each day now as I can. It is enough.

Ah, Mark has fallen asleep and that seems very right. I think I will join him.