What in the World?

What in the world is getting into people these days? I was sure kindness and generosity had gone by the wayside and that love and understanding were foregone. Our society today has gone through many, many changes from caring to not caring to right back to caring. I have been the recipient of kindness, generosity, caring and loving. I have had some unfortunate circumstances....or....perhaps I should say, fortunate circumstances which has brought to light that all of the above has never been lost --- I'm the one who lost hope and faith, it never lost me. My bestest friends and neighbors know of my plight and the other day presented themselves at my door with two weeks' worth of groceries. I was astounded. Astounded not because I never expected such understanding but, because of the love with which their presence was made. Love has never been lost -- I've been lost. What in the world?

Welcome She Writes

Witsendmagazine welcomes bloggers from Meg Waite Clayton's She Writer Blogger Ball Redux as part of SheWrites.com and its many supportive projects.

 

Meg Waite Clayton is the host of the SheWrites Novelist – Struggling or Not group and the Blogging about Books and Writing one.  She is also the author of the national bestselling novel The Wednesday Sisters.

Yay, Meg!

(Click on the bookshelf icon to visit Meg's Blogging Project.)

So Few We Can Trust

It just seems that corruption no longer lurks in corners.  It walks with head held high among us.  Now deceit and dishonesty bask in the bright light of day as de riguer realities.  Fox News and the conservative pundits create their own realities and then present them to their viewing and listening public as gospel and are believed as much as any gospel.  Political platforms are modified and fictionalized after victory without outcry.
Things change and we are too bombarded to even notice much less protest.
Here's one change that really bothers me, though.  In a world of too few trustworthy voices, I desperately miss the Geico Gecko.  That voice (male or female not the issue) was one we could trust.  And all of a sudden, I recently realized, that voice is gone.
I say bring back that Gecko.  We need such voices now more than ever.

No Child Left Behind

I saw that Charlie Sheen’s two-year-old twin boys were removed from his drug and porn star-ridden home. Family Services reports that they're trying to coordinate efforts between two potential placements, both identified as "safer environments": one is filled with chainsaw juggling drunken clowns, the other is only identified as "an unnamed Libyan dictator."

Golden

When I looked at the mail last night, I saw an envelope addressed to me from Starbucks. I opened it to find my Starbucks gold card. A gold card! And it even has my name on it! About eight months ago, I began a job that has me traveling around all day. Starbucks has free wi-fi, nice restrooms, good coffee and allows me a place other than my car to sit and do my documentation in between visits. I guess I've been patronizing them a lot.

Today, I went to the Starbucks in La Canada to show off my new card and get some coffee. "A tall coffee of the day", I began modestly, "And here's my new gold card". "Very nice," the barista replied, "but I see you only have 1 cent on your account balance". "Well, that ill befits a gold card owner", I said, whipping the last $20 bill from my wallet, "Put this on my account". I stopped short of adding, "And draw a cup for yourself, my good man".

Later in the day, I drove past Burger King. The sign in their window says that they now serve Seattle's Best coffee. A cup of Seattle's Best at Burger King costs $1.00. The same size cup at Starbucks costs $1.50. Burger King also has nice restrooms and free wi-fi, and I can sit there for just as long without being disturbed. But they'll probably never give me a gold card, which entitles me to a free drink on my birthday. I will try not to think about how many extra 50 cents per cup I will spend over the next nine months in order to earn that free drink.

In memory of Christina-Taylor Green

There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.
-- John Crowe Ransom
"Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter"

I need the soul and words of a poet to tell of the grief I feel for Christina-Taylor Green, a nine-year-old girl I never met.

Christina was the youngest of six people killed in the Jan. 8 shooting rampage that also left 13 others wounded, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Gabby, who represents Arizona's 8th congressional district where I live, is recovering in a Houston hospital, smiling, singing, speaking single words. Miraculously, she is healing from a bullet wound through the left side of her brain.

There was no miracle for Christina.

Born on a day of horrific national tragedy, Sept. 11, 2001, Christina was fatally wounded on another tragic day as she waited outside a grocery store to meet her congresswoman.

She was a third-grade student leader at her school, a choir member at her church, and the only girl on her Little League baseball team. So much promise, until a gunman's senseless bullet stole it all away from her. Stole it from her family, and from all of us.

I am sorry beyond words for the deaths and injuries of all the adults caught up in that day of gunfire in Tucson, but I still grieve for this little girl. I think of my own two grandkids, not much younger than Christina. Actually tear up when I think of her, of the tragic ending of her life.

On Monday, Feb. 28, they renamed a northwest-side park where Christina used to play. The new, official name of the park, "Canada del Oro Christina-Taylor Green Memorial River Park," has as many words as poor Christina had years.

To residents of the area, it'll simply be "Christina's Park."

A Meaningful Anniversary

On March 25, 1911 the Triangle shirtwaist factory, located on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of a Manhattan building, caught fire. The owners, whose offices were on the top floor, were able to get up to the roof and across to another building. About half of the workers on the 8th and 9th floors were able to get to safety by elevator or by the one available flight of stairs. The fire department ladders only went six stories high, and were useless. Of the three hundred Triangle employees, 146 died in the fire, most of them immigrant women in their teens and twenties. Several months earlier, Triangle workers, along with many other garment industry employees, had gone on strike for shorter hours, higher pay and safer working conditions. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company agreed to modify hours and raise pay, but would not allow a union. Neither did they make the place any safer. About 30 of the workers died while trying to leave the building on a fire escape that was rusted and rotten and plummeted to the ground with them on it. The reason that there was only one stairway available is that the others were locked because the owners feared employee theft.

As a result of the Triangle Fire, the labor movement was able to establish itself and lobby for hard-won victories in working hours, minimum wage, child labor laws and safety and health requirements. Our country learned at a steep price that if those issues were left to business owners, human safety and quality of life would never take precedence over profit. Sadly, that fact is still true.

Later this month, the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire will take place. It could not come at a more appropriate time. As thousands take to the streets in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio to protest the effort by Republican governors to bring down public-sector unions, and as hotel and food service workers in California try to improve their lot by unionizing, we need to remember the reasons why unions were necessary, and what they have accomplished. Auto workers, truckers, nurses, garment workers and supermarket checkers bought their homes, sent their children to college and retired in some comfort because of unions. Unions have been largely responsible for creating a stable middle class in the United States and yet, 100 years later, we still need to prove to some in this country that they need to exist.