Archive for the ‘musings, thoughts, questions’ Category

It might seem odd to you to see this post here, but someone reached out to me via my linkedn.com account and mentioned this book: My Body Belongs to Me Written by Jill Starishevsky is a prosecutor of child abuse and sex crimes in New York City, Starishevshky penned this book to Me to teach children that if someone touches them inappropriately to tell a parent or teacher right away.

This book is child-friendly and very accessible and speaks to them on their own ground and in their own terms. This highly acclaimed book sensitively establishes boundaries for youngsters in a non-threatening, engaging manner. Think of it as a guide that teaches kids that when it comes to their body, that there are some parts that are for “no one else to see” and empowers them to tell a parent or teacher if someone touches them inappropriately. Handled quite deftly, this narrative assures children of any age that sexual molestation is not their fault, and by speaking out, the child will continue to grow big and strong. Extremely important is the post-story discussion section entiteld “Suggestions for the Storyteller” to help parents, care-givers, and educators a path to encourage a comfortable discussion afterwards, thereby helping to prevent the unthinkable from happening to any child. Given the Oscar-nominated movie now out on DVD, Precious, and Mo’nique’s Oscar win for “Precious”. Mo’nique’s eloquence concerning child sexual abuse, it’s apparent we — as a society– not only need to have a grasp on this discussion, but on this burning issue. Considering that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually molested are not statistics that can be ignored. This is horrifying and would probably be higher if parents and educators made sure that kids knew that they could be safe in “telling” on someone who has touched them inappropriately. One might think that parents/family, educators and physicians are addressing this matter with our children to keep them tools and help prevent them from becoming victims in the first place. Unfortunately, many parents do not know how or when to begin when it comes to discussing child sexual abuse prevention and so they avoid the discussion entirely. This approach (or lack of approach) puts our children at risk. Finally, there is a tool to make the discussion as easy as.. well as easy as reading a book to a child. This book enables anyone– from the clergy, physicians, parents/family and also educators to address this issue safely and honestly. The illustrations are well done and the message of what is right and wrong is compelling and encouraging. My Body Belongs to Me is highly recommended by parents, teachers, physicans and widely used by experts in conjunction with their child safety presentations.

Comments and endorsements from other organizations and notables.

“With an easy rhyme and attractive pictures, this book will help both adults and children enter into a conversation about a subject that is often extremely hard for anyone to speak about, privately or publicly.” -Pamela Pine, PhD, MPH Founder and CEO Stop the Silence: Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc., www.stopcsa.org

“Prevention is key when it comes to children’s personal safety. Kudos to Ms. Starishevsky for taking on this project.” -Kimberley Clayton Blaine, MA, MFT Licensed family and child therapist, Founder, www.TheGoToMom.TV

“The author skillfully captures an extremely difficult subject using simple language any child can understand.” -Christine Louise Hohlbaum Author, “Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff”

This is an important– and necessary– book given today’s world. When you look at “PRECIOUS” and realize that this is happening all over the world– not just the US — and it’s cruel beyond belief for the child because they are told never to tell — and that it’s their fault which destroys the child forever. Give children the power to tell and reinforce it. Why is this coming up here? Because as a child, I was sexually molested and it haunted me for a long time. I told my mother– yet she did nothing because she didn’t know what to do. I was told to never tell because no one would ever want me. Imagine what it was like to grow up thinking no one would ever want me– and the decades of therapy I have gone through to get to the strength to say, yes I can stand up and fight for others. I have done my time volunteering at shelters and child abuse centers. Here is one more easily accessible tool that will make it easy for you to protect your children– or the children of others.

What’s your “perfect world”? LPW

The Only Way

I guess that on some level I have always understood how impossible it is to save everyone, but only recently have I come to realize the utter futility of what is wrong, but I cannot fix it. We must all come to grips with our own fate. We must fend for ourselves in a world full of wolves.

Each one of us has a quest to fulfill, a setback to overcome and a decision to make. We are all born into a dream and you can only be awakened of your own accord. There is no help to be had by another, One is one and not other. Amongst a world of many ,we are alone on our journey.

The answers we seek can only be sought within, and any attempt to assist another will only cripple them in the long run. If I take your suffering upon myself, then I deprive you of a lesson you were meant to learn. Life does not make mistakes. Life is without remorse, and life’s lessons will not be denied! We are always offered lessons in the lightest capacity. Our problem is we ignore them and in so doing force a stronger event to be set in motion.

Our eyes are sewn shut, our ears are plugged up and our hearts are encased in stone. We are pawns to the outside world, to our families , to our friends, to society and most all to our chosen God.

We refuse to accept what we have created, and always we blame others in the place of ourselves. We seek escape at every turn in the maze driven by panic, anger and fear. We are lost, but eventually we will find the way. Eventually we will realize the truth. Eventually we will learn to help ourselves.

It is not one way. It is the only way and all paths will lead to it…………………eventually.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Between the Lines

Over the years I have learned to express myself through my writing and I like to think of myself as good. However, this ability is not something which can be turned on at will. It is beyond me in a sense. When my pen touches paper, something happens which is not wholly of myself, but which is not all together different. What happens is a thing of beauty, a gift, and a total surprise. It is something that exists in absence of my control, and until now, I have never made an attempt to explain it.

You see, I, myself, understand what is going on in the subtext of this story. After all, who better to arrange a director’s cut than the director? However, to make you understand will take some work. So please consider this to be an attempt to that end and have some level of understanding for I am new to this branch of writer’s scope (introspection).

Words do not just form out of thin air, despite the use of my tools, pen and paper, I do not claim to have molded them in the same way that a sculptor molds a piece of clay into a statue.

What happens is something closer to that of a duet or a collaboration of sorts. To the majority of the world the only possible truth of story composition (or composition in general) is that I, the author, have created, out of my own mind, an original and totally self oriented piece of writing, but nothing could be further from the truth. True, I did not copy someone else’s word in order to pass them off as my own. However, I wouldn’t describe my writing as creating. A musician doesn’t create music. In reality, the music already exists. All he does is rearrange the notes to exist in harmony with one another. My gift is the same. My pen and paper are instruments, the forum of language is the scale of notes and my finished essays, poems, etc are songs. They are songs of the mind.

Which brings us to another question. If I did not create these songs, then whose mind did?

My answer is very simple……….”You did” . Sounds crazy, right? Do you know why that sounds crazy? I sounds because your thought matrix cannot process it in the same context that I am explaining it. In your linear brain construct things are self-sustaining and separate. Time seems to move in a straight line, but in reality things are more complex.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

IT’S FUNNY

Raining in the mind. Who or what gives us the idea that we are capable of controlling that which governs our lives? How do you use the mind to control the mind? It is impossible! One will reach certain madness before any perfection can be attained. In fact, I believe if perfection of wisdom were ever truly reached it would cause a breakdown in the system of existence itself. If anyone were to fully realize their infinite power of divinity it would cause all of existence to cease.

The dream we now live in is a self sustaining one and we are all key players in its ongoing cycle. Not only that, but I believe, without a doubt , that we are its’ creator. Our concepts of reality are not only side effects of its occurrence, they are the cause of reality itself. One could not perceive itself within itself as a result, one created division. Once division was created relation between two or more objects rendered very much information, but the one (or “none” as would have it) lost consciousness of itself and was blinded by the dream it had created.

Now here trapped in this cell, this illusion of emptiness, we are all called home. Though most of us don’t hear nor understand the true meaning of the screams for attainment that well up from within. We attempt to fill this bottomless pit with material possessions and worldly pleasures. We do not see beyond this veil of negative existence. Some hear the screams and form them into an idol of worship. I am not that type at all. I do not see an answer. I don’t even understand the question. All I know is nothing at all. There is not enlightenment in this world because the very nature of dwelling in this world negates such a possibility. You can’t light a match under water!

The realization of that fact is all we could ever hope to reach but only a fool would ever hope for more . Only a fool would fail to see the humor in it all.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

How Many

Since 2004, I have been a prisoner and for good reason. I was convicted of two counts of Aggravated Involuntary Manslaughter, for the taking of two innocent lives in a drunk driving accident. I was sentenced and remanded to a prison within the United States Department of Corrections. My earliest possible release will be not be for several years.

As on who has carried the burden of his actions, I understand all too well what I have taken. I have hurt so many people by my ignorance that early morning in the summer of early 2002. For what I have taken I am indebted, not just to the families of my victims, but to all of humanity. I cannot fix what I have done. It is beyond any man to change his past, but my future is another story.

It is for that future that I now write. Every so often I come across a news story about a fatal car crash that involved somebody like me. Every time I wonder ‘could that have been the one that I prevented?’

There are so many young ignorant kids out there who are either unable or unwilling to acknowledge the fact that their actions have consequences. They are unable or unwilling to see the fact that what they do affects others as well. I believe with all of my heart that my story could help to open their eyes, but in my current state, I am unable to reach them.

There are a few things that judges, lawmakers and the general public need to know about most people who commit this type of ‘crime’. This crime is not one which is motivated by malice. Buy the very wording of the charge itself…involuntary etc….one would assume that this concept was a given. Yet despite a persons lack of intention, life is still lost. Our purpose as a society should not be to punish the ignorant, but to insure that this doesn’t happen in the future.

You have to understand that nobody is afraid of going to jail for a DUI. How many people are killed by drunk drivers each year, how many are convicted and thrown into prison and how much does the rate of fatal DUI accidents differ as a result of those prison sentences? You cannot train a dog by constantly beating him. Fear has never bee, is not and never will be the answer to this problem.

The answer is awareness. The answer is in the enlightening of ignorant minds by using the life experience of those who have been through an ordeal like my own. Victims and offenders need to come tighter and use their collective stories to open the eyes of a public that believes, much like I once did, that this is something that happens and to other people.

As long as people believe that they are in control of their own lives and that they are above this type of occurrence, they will never fear the law. Why fear a prison sentence for something which could not possibly happen to you? How does anyone learn the consequences if nobody is there to teach them?

I was 21 years old and I was on top of the world. Nothing could touch me. I could make it home. Why not? I’d done it so many times before. I am them! I’m your child! Don’t you see? Tougher sentences are not the answer. We have to reach the hears and minds of these people by showing them how much pain one mistake can cause. Prison time has not hurt me in the ways that I thought it would. I can deal with living without for a while, but how many people can live without my story and stories like it. Just like the two victims who perished , how many innocent people will die because someone like myself never got to hear a story that could have changed their lives forever” ?

How Many?

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Manipulation

When I was housed at a major institution, I thought that I had seen it all, I thought that I had encountered every dirty, underhanded trick, ever crooked angle and heard every possible lie in existence, but I was wrong, Now, here at a road-camp for low security level prisoners, I must endure more. So very different in appearance, this place is still so very much the same.

Everything about this place differs but only on the surface. When it comes right down to it, most people that I have met are all right, but there are those who play games. They will try to befriend you–not because they think you are funny or because you have things in common, but because they are in need of your help (so to speak). They are either broke, scared or they believe that they can manipulate you into making their situation better.

There are a few different approaches. Let’s start at the top. One way is to lend you something when you first arrive so that when they ask for your assistance later on, you will feel obligated. Another way is the old “poor me” scam. (This is the one that is the hardest to spot if done correctly). They have soup, but if they only had crackers or if they have soup and crackers, but if only they had some cheese. Then they have soup, crackers and cheese but if only they had a soda. The good ones never actually ask for anything. They just subtly imply and because of your pity, you give what you can.

There are many different ways to use another human being but in the end, the result is always the same. The people who do these things are actors (very good ones at that) They are your friends and associates up until the moment that you find out the truth and for many it is too late. After all, this is a prison and there is not much room for mistakes.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Lost Dreams

As the waxing hours of the morning turn into sunlight upon a distant horizon, I am here– alone– in my bed area. It is silent and yet around me, they are breathing softly and as they sleep , they are dreaming. They are dreaming of freedom, a better place to exist, a place so many long for, a place that not a one of us are that close to. They are dreaming of home.

I once experienced such dreams, . Now when I close my eyes there is nothing. This other world– created by the mind– has all but vanished without hope of return. I sometimes wonder if this lack of mental escape is a sign, a prelude to the realization of madness that I am inevitably inching towards.

My questions are many and my answers are so very few. I watch, awaiting harmony up the path which I believe I freely willed from the beginning. Yet at every turn on this road , I find only chaos. I cannot say that life is all a mystery for there are many lessons that I have learned along the way. I have had a great number of teachers but none more prevalent than death.

I have taken life and as a result, I will never be the same. I was forever changed by the event of that night and for my actions I am indelibly carry this weight with me always– but you wouldn’t know it. for a man’s burden in life is not always displayed upon his face like paint on a canvas.

some of us have refined the spectacle of our personal torment so that what was once thunderous roar is now little more than a whisper which trembles aloft a summer night’s breeze. It shames us in silence and leaving us with tears of solitude streaming down our faces.

Our pain is our own and though it appears to be gone to the naked eye it lingers on– haunting us from the grave. Such is fate but I accept that fate and would not change a single day as it occurred if given the chance. If I did, I would lose the wisdom that those events produced and I have a strange feeling that I will need such knowledge for the future that lies ahead.

Jeheshua

What’s your “perfect world”?
LPW

Singing Sparrow

Inciting cries, disguised by shadows
Perched on high, by night, resides the sparrow
Disgraced with shame, he calls her name.
Setting hearts ablaze with flames of sorrow
Once wanted days of old now come to passing
Unearthed, so lies tomorrow.

Echoes of wind whisper softly
Words of love once thought exhausted,
But the mind resists this daunting gift
For guit and fear must still exist
His once precious desires fall like rain,
And, sadly, years from now he’ll feel the same.

What a waste
For loved and lost his heart’s displaced
Yet in a flash of light, once concealed
A glimmer of hope his mind reveals
A key within
And from that day on
No longer caged and filled with song,
He sings.

Jeheshua

Preppycrat has taken on an issue about which I have been contemplating a commentary post. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad, but as someone who lives in the DC area, Preppycrat has more access to all the information that I do here in LA (read Liberal Alternative location) . Check out some of the videos HERE.

Here’s a quote from the Preppycrat post. Courtesy of www.politico.com, we have found out that Sarah Palin has spent approximately $150,000 on clothing, hair and makeup for herself and her family since early September.

OK, let’s parse this. Ms. Josephine six pack has spent three times the annual income of the average middle class family on clothes, makeup, hair since the beginning of September. That’s about a four or at best five week period. John Edwards’s $400 haircut was less than one tenth the $4716.49 spent on hair and makeup by the Palin clan. And as far as anyone knows, he paid this out of his own pocket (edit – he paid for it with campaign money but later reimbursed the campaign for it). The RNC funded the entire $150,000 for Palin’s clothing and accessories.

Similar outfits can be had at a variety of places, to wit Ann Taylor Loft, where you can have this outfit for less than $500 including the cute black patent leather tote and the ankle boots. Here at one of Michelle Obama’s favorite stores, White House/Black Market is a leather jacket similar to the one pictured on Palin, above. Yes, it’s black, not red. But from this store one can be sure the quality is good and the price is certainly reasonable for a good leather jacket. From Banana Republic, a black suit with royal purple blouse, and finally from Victoria’s secret, a suit in a pretty cocoa brown, and also from Vicki’s Secret what is more of a power play than a vivid red suit?

End of Preppycrat’s commentary and here is mine. Here’s what’s wrong with this picture— 1) Mrs. McCain wears an outfit that’s 10 x the cost of what Laura Bush wore to the RNC

Now I will say that Mrs. McCain PAID for this $300 thousand dollar ++ outfit from her own wallet— but given the economy then (and considered in retrospect with the current situation) this was just bad judgement. However it was her money.

2) Sarah Palin has let the RNC pick up the tab. Her stylist charged the RNC over $20k for the work she did which was almost 2x the amount that amount paid the McCain’s foreign policy advisor. Does anyone see the problem with the rationale here? What’s more important: the appearance or the knowledge? Your call here — not mine. However I don’t care HOW a president looks (overly gaunt and tall —think Lincoln; in a wheelchair— think FDR; wearing glasses because he’s really got poor vision and was a wimpy kid— think Teddy Roosevelt) , I care about what he—or she— can do and how much they know. I want them to be intelligent and informed. I don’t care if they are all that well-dressed. Especially in hard times when people are skittish and might be living in cars.(Recently spotted a couple people living in their car in our upper class are. I know someone who has been handing out Jackson’s when people ask for a buck), this is not the image the RNC needs to be putting out on the table.

Here’s another image that” Preppycrat wants you to see — Dr. Jill Biden!

According to Preppycrat; There is a gem of an article at www.style.com the online home of Vogue magazine that has a wonderful picture of the 4 generations of Biden women and an excellent article on Dr. Biden. The article and photo are also in the magazine itself. Among other things, Dr. Biden runs 5 miles a day, has multiple graduate degrees in addition to her doctorate, and truly likes clothes but also within reason, in the article she talks about much she loves one of the suits she’s purchased recently because it not only looks great and fits her well but it’s a price an “educator can afford.”

Ok.. I am not voting on the basis of fashion. If that were the case, I would use Cindy McCain as president and have her balance the budget— forget John. But this isn’t about fashion. It’s about being able to run a country and navigate tough times and treacherous waters.

What I don’t want to see in the White House is someone who’s foolish enough to think that image is everything and that we (as in “we the people” aren’t going to notice. Obviously I am not happy with the Wall Street Melt-down — and along with the manufactured gas “crisis”, the financials bailout- from AIG to all the mortgage- lenders who dropped the ball on being aware that people had to PAY these loans. It’s not a situation that’s going to be easy for any person to walk into and deal with — as an executive or the President. However if you want to base it on the values shown by the candidates and also by the images they are presenting (and yes this is about image), is what they are espousing matching up to what they are showing you? Is there alignment there or not? Is it relevant to your life? Is it meaningful? Are they walking the walk as wlel as talking the talk? (How can anyone forget they own 8 houses?)

Referencing the Wall Street Meltdown, I have created a sandwich in honor of this occasion: Swiss Cheese, Sour Pickles, Ham, Turkey,
Saurkraut , Hot Mustard, Red Onion on day old egg bread— grilled till it’s really crispy and brown— almost black.

Thanks to Preppycrat for allowing me to borrow her posts. Living in a Perfect World: How is life in your world? LPW.