Watch that knee-jerk reaction.

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The first comment I read about the disaster in Boston yesterday, only 20 minutes after it happened, blamed the 'east'.

Isn't that helpful.

Not that this person wasn't welcome to his opinion, but what good did it do? How does it support the injured? How does it heal?

It is easy to forget that everything we put out on the net stays there... probably forever. Why use that immortality to tear down? Why not use it to build up?

I'd like to share some words from a friend, a brilliant woman who always uses her words to build:

"Hug your babies. Take nothing for granted. Work hard. Play Hard. Hug your parents. Be careful whom you admire. Laugh. Drink milk from the carton. Splurge on one special thing a week. Live with no regrets. Sing in the car, and the shower. Believe the best of everyone until you have reason to believe otherwise. Laugh some more. Make your own fun. Maintain perspective in all things. Today is the only guarantee we have...don't waste it. Always make it count"  (See her beautiful work here)

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What happened in Boston was awful. It should not have happened, and I hope along with everyone else that the people responsible are found and prosecuted. But I will not live in fear and I will not blame a particular ethnic group for the cowardly acts of a very few people. If I do -- if any of us do -- then those few people will have won.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

You've Shot Yourself in the Foot. Again

Too many flipping princesses.

I can't help but admire women. I'm one of them.

But sometimes I just can't believe what we're letting us get away with.

Women's Lib was forty years ago, and I just saw a teenage girl wearing a t-shirt that read (I kid you not): I'M TOO CUTE TO DO MATH.

Who bought this for her? Her father? Did he think it was sweet? Did he think he was telling her how beautiful he thought she was? Did her boyfriend by it for her? Was it some kind of in joke because she was blond?? God forbid -- did she buy it for herself?

Would a boy wear a shirt like that? I bet not. Would someone buy it for him? Not bloody likely.

For some reason, society thinks it's still okay to belittle women, belittle their brains and belittle their accomplishments. And it's worse today than it was thirty years ago. I wasted fifteen minutes of my life in front of the remake of 'Charlie's Angels' last night. I watched the original series when it was on in the 70's, and let me tell you, the original was not nearly so offensive as the remake was.
 
Women have been fighting for generations for their voices to be heard. Right now, women are fighting for the right to an education, to have say over their bodies; they are fighting for the right to live without fear.

And here was this teenage girl, advertising that everything ever said about what she couldn't do was true.

I know she didn't see it that way, any more than I did when I was her age. I hope that when she got home her mother looked at her, and told her there was so much more to be than 'cute'; there was everything our great-grandmothers and grandmothers hoped for, and then some.


photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc