Giving a little Thanksgiving

It’s that time of year in America the holidays are upon us. Halloween is past and the entire season of thanksgiving, peace and good will has begun. It’s also a time of incredible commercialism, but let’s set that aside for a bit and turn our eyes to better things.

Whether your family has the traditional get together with turkey and all the trimmings, or you all plod out to ladle gravy at the local shelter, or you’re desert rats who spend the long weekend on the dunes, or whatever you do, there are ways to reach beyond yourself this year, and maybe, just maybe, doing exactly that is a cure for the cynicism brought on by far too many cutesy holiday displays assaulting our senses at every possible turn.

Check out volunteermatch.org – they have incredible information on things you can do, place to help, etc. Searching within 20 miles of my zip code turned up five matches for opportunities to lend a helping hand this Thanksgiving.

If you live near a military base, check with their Ombudsman, personnel services or the CO of the base to find out if they run a program to hook young men and women up with families willing to open their homes to a stranger come holiday time. Long ago, the Navy had the “Stuff a Sailor” program.

Any major city has homeless shelters, and most will run a “soup kitchen” for Thanksgiving Day. Many churches or other organizations will host a dinner for homeless or low-income families and they need people to help cook or serve.

Look into senior or convalescent homes in your area. Do they need help serving a special dinner? Can you bring in special treats, or can your kids make some decorations to brighten the otherwise austere place?

How about starting a new “tradition” on Thanksgiving, and instead of sitting at home eating far too much, take your family out and do something for those who have less. Sure, you’ll miss out on the heaping helpings of rich food, but think of the riches you’ll be giving to others. And besides, you can always have a family dinner on Friday.

Pedophiles on World Tour

Finally done, posted yesterday…

It amazes me what researching and writing this piece did to me - I cannot, will not ignore this.

I want you to take a journey with me, it will be brief and it won’t cost you a penny. All you have to do is close your eyes and imagine.

Imagine: Picture yourself a child, in a poor country, from a poor family … you sleep on a mat on the floor, eat maybe once a day … there are too many mouths to feed … too many bodies in too small a space … chaos, filth, hunger, pain, despair – these are your daily companions … the family needs to reduce the number of hungry mouths or bring in extra money.

Your parents decide to take desperate action. They owe money and can’t feed the rest of the family. Older siblings who can find work do, but what to do with you, the young one?
For the rest of this post - check out MFFO.

A question of compassion - part II

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post titled “A question of compassion”… I was in process of writing a piece on sexual tourism - those sick individuals who travel to other countries, seeking to satisfy their pedophilia by engaging in sexual activity with young child prostitutes.

The concept disgusted me, the research shocked me and in the end, I wrote not the piece I was originally intending, but one that cut much deeper into my very own soul.

That post is complete now, waiting publication on October 4 on the MFFO site… There is an incredible amount of activity over there now, everything ranging from living green to Amber Alerts and issues in the Middle East - and just about everything in between.

Many is the time I have been in awe of the heart and compassion these ladies display. Many times I’ve been humbled by their desire to reach out beyond themselves, beyond their worlds, and into the worlds of others. And above all else, I have been inspired…

Which is why I count myself very lucky, very blessed indeed to be participating over there. 

Maybe this process is why I’ve been on a light and fluffy kick of late. The depth and darkness surrounding the sexual tourism piece was, I am ashamed to admit, nearly overwhelming. I kept having horrific images of my own children being victimized that way. The research haunted me, it moved me to tears…

And I did what I always do when emotions threaten to become too much - I pour it out in words.

And I hope that maybe, just possibly, my humble words might be inspiration to another - that one voice at a time, bit by tiny bit, we can bring about change… And again I am reminded -

“Compassion cannot be bought. It must be invoked, drawn down from the gods themselves, those masters of compassion, those creators of human beings in all their diverse forms.”

What does NAZI mean to you?

To a bedding company in Mumbai, India, it means “New Arrival Zone for India” and it was just what came to the mind of the dealer.

Huh? Yeah, that makes so much sense.

According to Kapil Kumar Todi (the dealer), it’s not meant to be anti-Semitic, and he has been quoted as saying, “It really does not matter to me who feels bad about it.”

Ermmm… OK, let me get this straight, a line of bedding whose promotional material supposedly contained images of swastikas (I say “supposedly” because I never saw the actual images) and whose name as an acronym is NAZI really is totally innocent. Right?

That is what we’re supposed to believe?

Many of the news reports make sure to point out that India has a very small Jewish population and that Holocaust awareness there is nearly nil, that in India, Hitler is just another historical figure.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to digest these news pieces, trying to even begin to understand how anyone could create an acronym that makes up such a heinous word. And make no mistake; “Nazi” is a heinous word.

I can’t for the life of me imagine using a term that is historically synonymous with genocide as a marketing ploy. No matter how clever it seemed.

Nor can I understand the claims that it means nothing in India. Really? World history means nothing? This was not some isolated, cultural phenomenon. The Holocaust was a tragedy that still wrings the deepest emotion out of its aging survivors.

I sincerely hope this man has a change of heart and discontinues this ill-conceived and thoughtless line of marketing.

Utterly disgusting. The worst part is, I can also see the flip-side where white supremacy and neo-Nazi groups actually seek out these products in order to have them in their homes.

And that, my friends, is the start of a whole new rant.

PS - yes I do realize the swastika has been used in many other cultures as well… Including, I believe, in India as a good luck symbol…

Well, goodness this was fast!

Apparently, commonsense has prevailed and the line is being destroyed, and apologies tendered. Still, what brainless, senseless, idiotic…. yeah…

What are you doing?

I’m stealing this from a dear friend (the hostess of the show):

“Tomorrow Sept. 26 at 3 pm eastern?!?! You will be sitting in front of your computer litstening to me at: www.blogtalkradio.com/mommymatter

I will be sitting down and talking with Noam Freedman, proprietor of Firestore in New York City. Noam works with charities and first responders to spread word of the after affects of September 11. Firestore and more information can be found at http://www.nyfirestore.com/still-killing.html “

Seriously, y’all - as crazy as the show was with me (it was just a gab fest! Exactly what it was supposed to be!) this one should be a serious look at the issues surrounding post-9/11 for those who were there at Ground Zero.

My hat is still off to those men and women, and you’d better believe I’m gonna be listening in to this one!

Show some love people!

If you can’t catch it live, save the link and listen in on the archive later.