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.
 

We're All Gonna Die!

We're all gonna die from the Swine Flu pandemic, outbreak, epidemic, epicenter, or whatever you call it...or on second thought, maybe not.

Those of you over 40 might remember this, at least those few of you who are lucky enough to have survived the last panepioutbreak of swine flue.

1976 Gerald Ford is the president.  Swine flu is found in the U.S. the NYT Headline reads:

U.S. FLU ALERT SET ON EPIDEMIC VIRUS"

What?  We had the swine flue back then?

March 1976: Ford asks congress for $135 million to make a vaccine and inoculate the entire U.S.

Boy, he was surely on top of it.

April 1976: Senate votes for the #135 million.

May 1976 Race for vaccine begins in a Manhattan Lab.

June 1976 Europe wonders why we're running around in a panic.

Those naysayers! What do they know?  Don't they know we're all gonna die? Probably the French as usual.

October 1976:

SWINE FLUE PROGRAM HALTED IN 9 STATES AFTER 3 DIE FROM SHOTS.

Oops.

Dec 1976:

SWINE FLUE PROGRAM SUSPENDED

People were apparently getting sicker from the vaccine than the flu.  Side note: this whole debacle helped sink Ford's re-election chances.

Feb 1977 First lawsuits filed.

Nov 1978 a total of $2.6 billion in claims filed in the swine flu program.

Oct 1980: The government destroys $49 million in swine flu vaccine.

I read yesterday that 36,000 people die every year in the U.S. from the flu.  First thing that happens when you read that is that you calm down considerably, and you begin to wonder why the media has latched on to yet another scare story.  The second thing that happens is that you think ‘Holly crap, 36,000 people!  That's a lot of folks, why don't we panic every year?'

But, for now (putting that 36,000 number out of my mind) I think I'll wash my hands a bit more and go back to whatever it was that I was doing before this thing was mentioned every 5 minutes on the news...

Much thanks to Hamilton Nolan's original column on Gawker