Everyday Ramblings

Oops, I did it again, I have been a bad blogger, silent for several days.  I know where the story left off, and logically that is where I should begin.  But, I am not feeling that magic.  Inside my head are just random ramblings and observations today.  But maybe that's better than leaving the blog idle.  So, here we go.

First rambling.  I am noticing way to many lyrical pop culture references in my blogs lately.  Today's opening line would be quoting Britney Spears.  Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers was all I could sing when I posted some pictures beneath the bridge at Dockyard a while back.  I think it started with the Rock Superstar reference when I was roaming the Gibbons Gardens.  My coworkers have been suffering with me finishing their sentences with song lyrics for a few weeks now, although I secretly think they enjoy it.

Second rambling.  Even though my surgery was minor, I cannot believe how tired I still am!  OK, that may be a whine rather than a ramble, and it doubles as an excuse why the blog has been idle.  I'm sure the St. Patrick's Day outing had nothing to do with me being tired all week.

More seriously, having been off work while recuperating, I spent an incredible amount of time fanatically watching the news.  Specifically, I have been unable to turn away from Malaysian Flight 370 coverage, and read every theory in almost every paper of any country that prints in English.  Like the rest of the world, I want to know the outcome, and am baffled by all of the uncertainty involved.  I realize how much we have changed, and how a lack of immediate access to answers and information feels outrageous...even though I grew up communicating with friends via letter mail and researching homework in the encyclopedia.  More importantly, I can imagine the anguish of the families, and feel we should be able to do more in this day and age.  But perhaps that impatience isn't rational.

My news watching has also made me realize that I have not paid enough attention to some other parts of the world.  When I heard that Kazakhstan and China were taking the lead in the Northern Sector search for MH370, I went "Kazakhstan??  Really?"  Because the entire sum of knowledge I have of Kazakhstan comes from a single article years ago in National Geographic talking about the people and resources of each of the "new Stans" post Russia.  I really have been in a bubble.  Syria. Crimea, and Russia vs the Ukraine.  The West African Lion is "virtually extinct."  When I start to think about all of this it makes my head swim.  What is our role in all of this?  Are we simply meant to witness?  What can one person do?  What can I do?  Probably the most significant yet convenient thing each of us can do it to be aware, and to spread awareness.  We are all armchair journalists with facebook and tweeter, whether we choose to share jokes, gossip, causes, information, or campaigns.  When a cause has an audience, the odds of it receiving aid and facilitating change become greater.  One person, one decision at a time.  Maybe I can't stop the inevitable.  But, as with donations to animal shelters and rescue agencies, maybe I can save one lion.  Maybe preserve something for a generation.  Educate one child.  Well, then we all can.  And suddenly there are enough lions.  Less hungry children, who maybe grow up to be Doctors and Scientists and build a more harmonious world.  What if it just needs the momentum of a comparative few to "keep paying it forward," until it leads to a significant shift?  To refer back to something I read, it is worse to do nothing than too little just because it isn't enough.

(Somehow in that last paragraph the song "When the Children Cry," but White Lion, came into my head.  It's a good fit.  And it shows that the issue of situational song lyrics getting stuck in my head is still ongoing for another day.  But I really am going to give to Lion Aid.)

The other thing I did while I was recuperating was read.  The day that the media announced that Canada had officially pulled its military out of Afghanistan, I opened up "The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul."  Over the past 12 years how I think of Afghanistan has changed.  Before 9/11, I thought of the loss of women's rights when I thought of Afghanistan.  The resurgence of the Taliban.  I remember after 9/11 some coworkers trying to make heads or tails out of why our military was going to Afghanistan, and who these Taliban guys were, and being shocked that I could give a pretty decent summary.  As always, my diligent reading of National Geographic had covered all of this many months before North America became involved in the conflict.  Our association with Afghanistan and the Taliban gave way to Afghanistan and Terrorist groups like Al-Queda, then simply to war, and drugs.  I think many people, including myself, forgot about a time when we looked at the oppression of women as the worst thing happening in Afghanistan.  As I turned the pages, I remembered that a generation of women were stripped of their rights, not only to be forced under the burkha, denied education and employment, and forbidden to drive, but had the most basic human rights taken away,  were imprisoned, sold, or killed.

When we think of the years that many militaries were stationed in Afghanistan, we obviously think of being at war with terror, and almost as an afterthought, a war on drugs from the region.  But have things changed for the people of Afghanistan in those years?  The oppressed?  Well, I don't remember hearing a lot about this in the news (but I am not always a news junkie), but it was 2004 that Afghanistan changed its Constitution to give equal rights to men and women.  October of 2004 was the first time women were allowed to vote in decades (for it was not always an oppressive state).  Yet in 2009, the Shia law was passed, which meant a woman could not leave her home without permission, nor could she ever refuse sexual relations with her husband.  Yup.  They made it law.  This pops up again in 2010 in the Shiite law for Muslims.  And as the world starts talking about leaving Afghanistan, civilian deaths peak in 2011 at the hands of the Taliban.  However in 2011, over 2 millions girls have returned to schools in Afghanistan.  A poll showed 72% felt their lives had improved over the past decade of foreign occupation.  86% feared a return to Taliban rule.  Life expectancy increased from 42 to 62 years of age.  There are still child brides.  Some factions are currently working to repeal or amend the Law for Elimination of Violence against women that was passed a sparse 4 years ago.  Our militaries made a difference.  I believe that absolutely.  But Afghanistan still has some difficult and disturbing internal conflicts to negotiate.

To leave on a lighter more literary note, I just wanted to share three quotes from the book that struck me.  I am not going to say why, and maybe out of the context of the book they are not as striking, but both of these sections made me stop and think.  I hope you like them.

"'It's one of those things that mark your life, as in before...and after.'  She turned her head to the darkening sky and breathed in deeply, her chest lifting.  'Just look at those stars.  Wherever you are -- in London, in LA, in Sierra Leone, in Kabul -- the sky is still the sky.  At least something is certain, no matter where you are in the world or whether it's before or after.  But I used to be different.'"

"Grief is a great teacher when it sends us back to serve and bless the living.  Thus, even when they are gone, the departed are with us, moving us to live as they wished themselves to live."

"Only as children when we're too young to understand the signs do we love unrequitedly.  If you love, it's because you feel its power reflected back on you."