Reflections - and Resolutions

The generic list of resolutions reads something like this: 

eat less, exercise more, get organized, be happy.

Come on! Be honest - is there anyone that hasn't promised themselves

at least one of these resolutions sometime in their life!

I have a counter proposal.

Why not make New Year reflections?

Think about this past year of your life. What have you learned?

What are you grateful for? What changes did you make in your life?

And who has given you gifts of love and encouragement?

Then, what are your hopes for this next year?

Not your resolutions - your hopes for yourself and the world in which you live.

What kind of list have you made?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And What Would I Say?

Reading the news online, I said to my husband that the fiscal cliff was all over the news and everyone and their cousin was being quoted.

He said : They haven't called me.

I laughed. But as I continued to peruse the news, the serious and the ridiculous - I thought about what he said.

They haven't called me either. And what would I say if "they" did? Get it fixed pronto? Lock 'em in a room  until they can come out with a solution? Think about it and all the people's lives that will be affected if the Congress elected to serve all the people continues to draw lines in the sand?

Democracy is not about perfection. It is about approximation. There are no perfect solutions - and heavens, what would I do if it were all up to me. Move one piece in the complexity and hundreds of other pieces shift. Some good shifts and some not good.

We take so much for granted. Streets cleared of snow, clean water running from the tap, police and fireman to show up when they are needed. Support for people who have less, children that are hungry, folks caught in a rapidly changing technological world and needing new skills to be employed. Retirement income and Medicare. And the arts and education. All this stuff is not delivered by a Santa sliding down a chimney - or by the tooth fairy.

Oh - gotta go. I hear the phone ringing . . .

Not Finding Words

I was all ready to post something cheerful when I heard the news about the school shooting in Connecticut. The words in me left and I still have not found them.

How does a person write about such a tragedy - or write about anything else. This Advent has been a dark, dark time. Those children now gone - and their families. There are the families of children who were spared. And adults so committed to children gone from this world.

Fiscal cliffs, monster storms and multiple vehicles collisions, continued warfare - if anyone has any shred of innocence left in them, it must be gone by now. Yes, the world has ended, the world where winter meant ice skates and the smell of the wood stove in the warming house. Christmas caroling and gift-giving. Cheering the snow falling softly because it meant the soft of cross-country skiing and the prospective of sledding down long hills on toboggans. An innocent life that had spaces for laughter and faith that tomorrow would be better than yesterday.

Of course, this century is not the first for warfare and violence. But the instant global connections we now have means the Connecticuts and the Syrias are right there before us. It is said that it took months for word to reach Ben Franklin to learn about events in this country when he served as the first US Ambassador in France . When I was young, letters as the only means of communication to someone living elsewhere used to take several days to arrive. And calling long distance was reserved for emergencies - and folks talked loud because the other person was far away.

Now I can text family and get instant responses from wherever they are. And I can follow the news as it is happening.

So the faces of children in Syria and Connecticut are right there - closer to me than the faces of my neighbors who stay inside out of the cold wintertime weather.

Words? How do you describe terror - horror - unspeakable grief? Or fear, anger, and despair?

Feeling a Little Grinch-y

Must just be me . . .

Or is it? It seems as though, as one online columnist put it, the last 50 years never happened. Girl-gifts are hot on intense pink - and the same sexist connotations that were common fifty years ago before the women's movement roared into being. Pink frilly dresses hang on racks in Targe' - suggestive stuff I'd never would have let my two daughters wear when they were small. The girl ,who has taken on the makers of Easy-Bake Ovens, on behalf of her four-year old brother, who wants one for Christmas - after she discovered that the popular toy only comes in pink and purple.

 Then I read that folks can rent the Pope Mobile for special occasions such as weddings (the Vatican must be hard-up for cash - no comment why that might be so - that's another rant). And the article writer in the morning paper said that it means renting for good purposes - like "undefiled girls." That's right - undefiled - does that mean virgins only? And girls? I remember at the start of the women's movement, I still considered myself a girl rather than a woman. And that it took a bit of understanding on my part to learn how the word girl was used to keep women as the second class gender. When adult men did not refer to themselves as boys, other than as good-old-boys.

The other night, the PBS options were all fund-raising efforts - God bless them and their continued existence. Other than an occasional evening watching Dancing With the Stars, the only commercial TV we watch is the news. Perusing TV schedules, we decided to watch the annual Victoria's Secret show. After all, it started at 8pm CST, and thus couldn't be too risque - and since it is a world neither of us inhabit, it should be an interesting slice of culture. 

Unbelievable! Just one step short of what I'd call porn. Lots of navels and bare skin, and strutting around. One model had only a string up her otherwise naked butt to hold up the little thingy in the front. Commercials deemed too naughty for prime-time TV (thought this was TV we were watching, not something ordered from the nearest sex shop). Justin Bieber singing away among almost naked women (is he moving "up?")  And plenty of push-up bras - which we renamed pop-ups in honor of the pop-up ads selling stuff. After all, weren't these bras "selling stuff?"

I couldn't help wondering how many children of both genders were watching?

Don't get me wrong - these were beautiful women. And I don't think I'm a prude. It was the glorification of women as sexual objects that stunned me. All this after 50 years-worth of changing images of woman and enabling them to gain their rightful places as respected and contributing members of society. That women have brains, not just boobs and butts. I will constrain myself  from going on and on . . .

We become distressed, at least some of us, about conservative Islamist wars being fought in the Middle East. And horrified at the school girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan being killed over their being educated. But we need to take a serious look at our own culture and see what kind of messages we are sending regarding women.

As the saying goes: point your finger at another and three other fingers point back at you.