Abortion Disgrace

Sorry to get political here but this is ridiculous.  A 17 year-old girl in Utah was so distraught over being pregnant that she paid a stranger $150 to beat her until she lost her baby.  Can you imagine what it must have been like being her?  So alone she can't talk to anyone, walking up to a complete stranger, and asking to be beaten, and beaten badly?

Well, Utah, showing its total lack of compassion and winning the dubious 'failure to get the concept' award, is considering making getting an illegal abortion a crime, punishable by an up to life sentence.  This would include under age girls - like the 17 year-old.

So, let's see - take away personal and family counseling, teen education, and birth control availability, then add a pregnant girl on her own and surprise, surprise you get a girl looking for alternatives- add total fear of a state system that has favored men's rights over women's and you get a girl willing to get beaten up to have an abortion.

Now, just to show your complete ignorance of women's issues, morality, or compassion, throw them in jail for life - oh, and by the way, let the guy off free.

The girl didn't succeed by the way, baby was fine. 

Send her to Brazil Already!

What were you doing your senior year in high school?  Me? Not much.  My one civic-minded effort?  Selling seed packets to neighbors (I know that dates me a bit).

Lauren Bronson in Nigeria last year

Lauren Bronson?  Oh, just spending her summer working two jobs, trying to get enough money together to go to an international business competition where she and her team will present their national award-winning project at the global competition.

Lauren is part of an international group called SAGE – high school kids interested in changing the world through new socially conscious businesses.  They come up ideas, turn them into businesses then run them while at school – all on their own time and dime.  Their endeavors have to be socially, environmentally and globally sound.

Then, if they’ve done well, they present at state, national, then international, competitions.  

As part of the project, which Lauren has been with for a couple of years, Lauren went off to Nigeria last year and came away energized as ever – finding herself as head of her team this year.  

I saw her team in San Mateo where they presented and won the California State Championship.  So now they are off to Brazil for the global competition.  Teams from Europe, Africa, and the world will all be there hoping to win, but win or lose will come away with something that can’t be taught.  They will have met kids from different cultures, speaking different languages, rich and poor, all working to change the world in a way we can all live with.

So, I don’t know what you were doing when you were in high school, but if Lauren is any glimpse into the future of teens around the world then we’re in good hands.

I spoke to Lauren this morning and they've done well raising money in this current economy, but they need $4000 more for the team of 5 to go – they’ve only got about ten days left, so if you can help – or know someone who can, I can’t think of a better way to spend a few dollars and help some very deserving kids. Paypal link is http://bit.ly/benicia  they'll be happy with any help.

Her school said that you may send a check payable to Benicia High SAGE c/o Sue Tronnes, Benicia Unified School District, 350 East K St., Benicia, CA  94510.

P.S. Lauren will be posting about her travels to Brazil and their team on her pnn blog, which she just started today: http://whereintheworldislb.pnn.com

P.P.S. in case you want to know about SAGE and learn a bit about it’s creator, fellow named Curt DeBerg, who has the energy of the Energizer Bunny, and enough enthusiasm for his kids to guarantee it’s success, check it out here

I seem to have inherited a grown up sister.

Well, she's actually been my sister all along, but it's just been of late that I've come to see that she's somehow not my little sister anymore.  I blame my mother.

You see, my mother is now 89, and disappearing. 

Disappearing in the way that most old folks do, in the sense of being less ‘there' mentally -prone to asking you how the family is, minutes after asking you how the family is.  And she needs way more care than she did just a few years ago.  This is what changed my sister.

When my mom's health started to deteriorate a few years back, it was my sister, who was the only one of four kids that lived near enough (a few blocks away in her case) to do much good on a day-to-day basis.  And as a result my sister had to do everything.

At first my sister objected - she couldn't travel when she wanted to, she had to make twice a day visits, act as taxi driver, get pills, find gardeners, talk to doctors and physical therapists, and plead with her brothers for help.
But somewhere along the line she changed.  I don't know whether it was her Buddhist nature, her supportive husband, or what, but she turned the whole experience around into what she now calls a ‘wonderful time'.   She now sends all three brothers a weekly update, and it's this that made me realize she's changed.

So, with apologies to her for sharing, I give you the email she sent to the brothers on mother's day.  Note: my mother (‘Ellie'), to add to her difficulties, recently fell and broke her hip; she can now only get around with a walker.

Happy mothers day everyone,
 
I hope you are well complete with a robust spirit.
 
This week held more new territory for Ellie as we explored the events held on our mother earth. We checked up on the baby geese and heard quite a conversation between the breeze and the leaves on the trees, of course then the geese had their say. We purchased seeds as well as a few plants for her planter boxes. Ellie was timid about getting in the dirt, so I fearlessly lead the way by playing with it, then there was no stopping her and we planted everything in those two boxes...tomatos, strawberries, lettuce, beets, carrots, chives, nasturtiums, zinnias, oh, many more. Intensive gardening...all will be a surprise. We tried out a watercolor class held at the senior center on Friday mornings. Saturday was a trip to the coop for sparkling cider and Swiss cheese, and today we went to the arboretum and soaked in the pastoral scene complete with families having picnics on the grass. Later on it was exercise time and another walk, followed by green tea ice tea mixed with a soda called squirt. What a name.
 
Hope you enjoyed the full moon on Saturday.