International Medical Corps–Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children

 

Is this picture not GORGEOUS?? From IMC's site. 

Here's your chance to vote for something non-sectarian, non-political, something unequivocally right and important, something that will not, I assure you, get parodied on SNL this weekend.

International Medical Corps, established by volunteer doctors and nurses, has been working tirelessly and passionately to save children's lives for over twenty years. Their project, "Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children" is now eligible to receive over a million dollars in funding.

If they get enough votes.

That's where we all come in.

Go here and vote. It's free. It's right. And time is of the essence.

UPDATED TO ADD: I just heard from someone at IMC that they are now in the top five (as of this writing, they are number four)! Voting continues until October 14th when the winner, who will be awarded 1.5 million dollars will be announced. 

Let's get IMC the top spot! A million and a half! Think of the good that would do.

Vote! And spread the word!

From the IMC's site:

Hunger and malnutrition kill more people in the world than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. As food prices rise, this funding is even more critical. More people are being driven deeper into poverty trying to afford basic staples. Many have nothing to eat at all. Your vote makes it possible for fewer young lives to be lost because they do not have enough to eat. 

Getting the word out to your friends and family makes a huge difference! Forward this link to a friend and you bring us that much closer to the $1.5 million to help malnourished children around the world!

Back on the soap box with someone else’s words…

Just got this in my in-box. Don't know who wrote it. When I find out, I'll credit him/her. In the meantime, I think this sums it up nicely:

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with 

over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

 

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. 

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude,' with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Mother F’ing Resistance

I can't stand it. 

I'm just a middle-aged woman with the cellulite on my arms and the big black hairs jutting from my sagging chin.

I'm not a special education expert. I'm not even a Fluffy expert. 

Am I? Am I the EXPERT on my son? Do I know it all?

No.

I ought to have more patience than this. After all, it's only the second week of homeschooling. But jeez, the fighting me on every point is SO TIRESOME. 

I'm going through something over here. It's not bad. I think it may even be good. But it's, as yet, inchoate, ungraspable.

Enki doesn't have the entire answer for me. Neither does RDI. 

We're forging a new path.

Sometimes we're out there with the tiny brushes. Sometimes it's delicate work.

Sometimes I wish I had me a handful of dynamite. Blow a mother f'ing hole through the side of the mountain.

 

Pinwheels for Peace

It's not too late to join Pinwheels for Peace on this, the 28th International Day of Peace.

Go here to watch a short movie that leads you through the steps to create your own personalized Pinwheel for Peace. 

Go here to download a template and directions to make your own pinwheel.

Go here to find local Pinwheels for Peace events or here to join a photo gallery of peace pinwheels.

I'll be back at the end of the day to post our pictures.

In the meanwhile, I give you the blessing we sing at lunchtime:

Peace we invite you to greet us

Faith dance with vision around

Love circles through us 

To open our hands

We receive with great thanks

The gifts of the land

Peace. 

It's not naive to believe.

2nd Grade, Week 1

Finally, right? I’ve stepped
off my political soap-box and back into the homeschool classroom. Who cares
what I think about the McCain/Palin ticket or the Obama/Biden ticket for that
matter. Just get back to the quirky things Fluffy says about space for goodness
sakes!

Okay, then!

Fluffy is now working on
launching an unmanned mission to Mars by the time he is twelve years old–for
real, he insists. He’ll need to help of his cousins J. and E. as well as his
dear friend, A. and his new babysitter, G. but, by golly, he’s determined to
rescue disappeared US aircraft that he believes have been stolen by denizens of
the land of rest dust, or red rust, depending on your source. 

This may be a
result of our reading Thomas Disch's, The Brave Little Toater Goes To Mars, or simply from his
own research in the field of space science. I know not. I only know that he
asks me every day if I think he’s up to the task and every day I say, Yes, my
sweet, I believe it’s possible. Why not?

So, meanwhile, I’ve launched 2^nd
grade and if Fluffy’s rocket could indeed get to Mars by the end of this school
year, at the rate I’m going, my curriculum rocket would maybe get us to the
roof of our new home by spring.

Ahem.

We’re doing a modified Enki,
focusing a multicultural theme. Our first ‘block’ lasting until the end of
October, is on Scottish culture. September, language arts; October, math. For
the rest of this month, we’ll be singing Scottish songs, baking Scottish
delicacies, reading Scottish authors and traditional Scottish folk stories, and
studying the live and work of John Muir.

There aren't, as yet, any Enki science
materials but the stories about John Muir lend themselves easily to further
reading and experiments about trees, leaves, nature and conservation in general.
The 2^nd grade crafts book is not ready but since we struggle with
fine motor issues in our house, we’ll be busy enough using projects from both
the K and 1^st grade books from years past.

So, what did Fluffy do this week?

A lot of yelling and screaming.

I would sing the getting
dressed song; Fluffy would yell. I would sing the going for a walk song; Fluffy
would scream and run from the room as if I were chasing him with a flaming
pitch fork. I would sing the piano lesson song; Fluffy would topple the bench
and fling himself to the floor to writhe in desperation. Yes! Even the beloved
piano!

I kept it simple. I had a
feeling we would hit a wall of resistance and challenge after a summer of chaos
and free-for-all, a move to a new home, and a month or more of scattered mommy
attention so I was all pumped up with my spiritual cocktail of calm, clear, and
consistent communication with a side of flexibility.

My goal was simply to
reestablish rhythms, a broad sketching out of contracted, expansive, and transitional
activities of the day. And you know what? By Wednesday, Fluffy said to me, Mom?
I think this new schedule is working. It’s superb helping me with my computer
addiction.

I think of Pete Seeger and one
of the songs he’s known for, Turn! Turn! Turn! and the lyrics, To everything turn, turn, turn, There is a season, turn, turn,
turn, A time for every purpose under heaven.

As we go through the morning, I
sing (inside my head for I daren’t sing the ‘wrong’ words out loud until Fluffy
is feeling more integrated in this new routine!) A time to play, a time to eat,
a time to dress, a time to walk knowing that soon enough, the shape of  what I lead him through will sink down
and provide a structure that supports us both.

It's working. The second half of the week was remarkably smooth. We walked, we jumped rope, we read stories, we drew with crayons and wrote lower case letters, we sang songs, we did science projects, met the new OT, the new SLP, and had a wonderful playdate. 

To top it off, last night we had a houseful of people here to celebrate Dave's birthday. Many of them neither Fluffy nor I had never met, including children. I had the entirely new experience of attending to the guests while Fluffy moved in and out of the fray, unsupervised and entirely happy. At one point, he and the other two kids had taken Twister off the shelves and were tying themselves up in hilarious knots. 

My Fluffy.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you imagine? 

Listen, I have some academic goals for my son to be sure, but my vision for him is much the same as my vision for myself. To: 

find a new friend

write every day

feel connected to the earth and
our neighborhood

discover new things

deepen our involvement in the
things we already know and love

feel strong, flexible, and integrated in
our bodies, minds, and spirits

And now I shall set out on my mission to collect signatures for peace to end this messy, illegal, protracted, and deadly war in Iraq. Ooops, there I go again…

Million Doors For Peace

I just signed up for Million Doors for Peace, the largest anti-war demonstration ever mounted, to be held across all 50 states this Saturday, September 20.

It's easy. Could be fun. Sure would burn a few calories. 

Go to the site, sign up, receive 40 names and addresses of people in your neighborhood (or choose a different neighborhood, if you wish) download a map if needed. And take a walk, knock on some doors and ask your neighbors if they'd like to sign the petition to bring our troops home from Iraq within a year.

You can go here to read the text of the petition. Or just keep reading below:

Members of the United States Congress:

The five and a half years of war in Iraq has been an exercise of misplaced priorities:

Draining U.S. taxpayers of at least three trillion dollars which could have gone towards investments that strengthen our economy, such as: health care for our families, ensuring the best education for our children and youth, and addressing the energy crisis.

Resulting in hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis dead and wounded.

And undermining the United States’ standing as a worldwide symbol for democracy and justice.

Because of these reasons, the majority of American and Iraqi people want the United States to begin a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as soon as possible, with a date certain for completing that process.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, call on [Rep. / Sen. NAME] to immediately support and pass legislation that will set a specific date to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq within a year.

Jeez. Three TRILLION dollars. 

I remember when Fluffy said he wanted to become the world's first trillionaire. Everyone said, TRILLIONAIRE? Whoa, baby! I can't even imagine that much money! Just think of it–OVER nine hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars. 

Times three.

Yes. Just think of it. 

Vision, Voice, and Action

Gang, I am greatly disturbed by the state of our union. I've been aware of the damage done these last many years but truthfully? Ever since Fluffy was born, my focus and attention has been on and for him. My strongest memory of September 11, 2001 was that my son was happy sitting on the floor in a puddle of his own drool, gnawing on his fist which freed me up for a chat with a friend that lasted more than a few frazzled seconds.

It took a year before I was able to allow the events and the significance of the reaction of our leaders to those events sink in. It's still sinking in. In fact, because Fluffy is doing so well, because my life feels blessed, because our day to day has become our own wonderful (albeit, messy and still perplexing at times) norm, I am able to lift my eyes from my immediate surroundings and take in the wider view. And it is not looking so good.

The war in Iraq was conceived as a generational war–I'm talking many decades–one hundred years in some estimations. It was not waged for freedom. It was an unconstitutional and imperialistic act waged for oil to line the pockets of the few at the expense of the many. 

I've been reading and listening these last weeks. And it occurs to me that we, as a people, have been complicit in our silence. I certainly have been. I don't say this out of blame, for me or for anyone else. But I do feel a powerful sense of responsibility to my nation. Some could argue it's the same thing that has motivated me for the last seven years: my passionate concern and preoccupation with my son and his future. Okay. That's fine by me.

I care about Fluffy. I care about the world I've brought him into. I care about the future I'm leading him toward. I care about the lessons I hope to embody in how I treat people in and outside the walls of our home, in the words I use, in the dreams I hold.

Vision, voice, and action.

Visioning in part of our every day life over here. For the last couple of months, we've been visualizing Senator Obama as the President of the United States. Whenever we talk about him, we refer to him as President Obama. 

I hold in my mind the vision of Obama taking the Oath of Office; Fluffy told me that in his vision, a huge American flag takes up background of a platform stage. George Bush steps down and Barack Obama steps up to take his place.

Voice is what I bring to this blog and my conversations with friends, family, neighbors, the man behind the deli counter, the waitress who brings my steaming delicious mug of coffee.

Action is what I take when I sign up to volunteer at the Obama Headquarters, when I make calls to those on the fence, when I listen to what other people are saying even though what they say makes my face flash with the heat of shock and disbelief. 

Part of that action is passing along things like this ad about John McCain. 

This isn't any different than what I've been trying to do with Fluffy since we began this journey: vision, voice, and action in the world of education, child development, and autism. I just feel ready to open the doors and windows, to see not only the surrounding neighborhood as an extension of my home, but the whole country, the whole planet, even Sarah Palin, bless her lying heart. 

Vote For Change Dot Com

One of these days I'll return to posting about life, Fluffy, and beauty tips for the nearly 50 set but for now, I am plagued with dark thoughts about the direction our country is, well, careening. 

As Dave said, it's not so much that Sarah Palin and her semi-automatic-loving (to protect the second amendment rights of all americans to protect themselves), pro-life stance (to protect and preserve the sanctity of God-given life) while hanging out of a plane gunning down wolves in their natural habitat is profoundly frightening so much that SO MANY PEOPLE SEEM TO LOVE HER AND PLAN TO VOTE FOR HER.

Why? Because she's "a beautiful woman." Because she makes you feel that "anyone can be the Vice President of the United States." 

Now THAT is frightening.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Go here for a great analysis of Palin's deer-in-the-headlights response to Gibson's question about the Bush Doctrine. 

A feminist? She, who approved a budget cut that resulted in rape victims being billed for their own rape test kits?

One of these days I'll sit in my unpacked and organized new office sipping dark roast coffee with half and half (mmmmm) and write jocular account of our family trip to the Lebanon, New Hampshire's Opera House to see Pete Seeger in concert last night or all-day excursion to Vermont's fantastic Montshire Museum of Science or recount Fluffy's new and ever-evolving strategies for securing intravenous french fry while wired to Mini Clip Dot Com home page round the clock.

But for now, I urge you, ONE AND ALL, to register.

The Obama team has made it fast and easy: VoteForChange.com.

As unimaginable as this is to me, this election is going to be close, too close to miss even one vote for Obama because of any confusion over registration issues.

Go. It only takes a minute or two.

More on Sarah Palin

This website is worth a read. 

Scary scary stuff.

Here I quote Dennis Kucinich, "WAKE UP AMERICA!"

Back to my boxes…

Women Against Sarah Palin, count me in

I'm coming out from under my pile of boxes on the other end of our move here in our sparkling and hip Northampton neighborhood where Mo Willems lives right around the corner to pass along this link to the Women Against Sarah Palin blog. 

People, what is going on? 

It is profoundly frightening to me that this woman would be a heartbeat away from the Presidency but even more frightening that the race is as close as it is.

Obama WILL win in November. He must. 

We are surely in the shithole if he doesn't.