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We The People

8/23/2018

Photo / Will H McMahan
You can make excuses not to vote -- I’ve heard them all. Said a few myself.

You’re too busy. You’re not sure if you’re eligible. You don’t know how to register. Your vote won’t make a difference.
Why bother, all politicians are alike. It’s too hard to fight all the injustice.

In my many years on this planet, I’ve learned most excuses are bullshit.

Too busy? Many states have mail-in ballots. Fill the ballot out over a soda and pizza.
No mail in ballot? Create an event in your social media feed and invite your friends and neighbors. Carpool to the polls on Election Day – make it a tailgate-voter party.
Attending college away from home? Ask for an absentee ballot from your local election facility. Now.
Not sure if you’re eligible? Here are the only requirements to vote in a US election:
- Be a U.S. citizen
- Be 18 years old (to vote this year, you must be 18 years old by Nov 6)
- Live at your present address at least 30 days before an election
- Not be in jail or on parole for a felony conviction
- Not claim the right to vote elsewhere
Don’t know how to register? Go here: https://vote.gov/
Think your vote won’t make a difference? An election in Virginia in 2017 was a tie. The winner was decided by a coin toss. Believe me, every vote is important.
Think all politicians are alike? Then run for office yourself. Go here: https://www.runforoffice.org/
Concerned about voter suppression or problems in your area? Go here: https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights
Too hard to fight all the injustice? Yeah, alone it is. What you need is support. To be inspired, check out these young activists:

The Parkland teens – they’ve launched a nation-wide campaign to register young people to vote. Follow them on twitter or go to: https://marchforourlives.com/
The Junior Newtown Action Alliance – an advocacy group led by students in Newtown. Follow them on twitter: @Junior_NAA
22×20 -- a national initiative recognizing that by 2020, 22 million teenagers will have turned 18. They want to be informed and ready. Go to: https://www.22x20.org/

You’re still disheartened. I get it. I can be, too.
To combat my apathy, I remind myself that fighting for change takes guts, courage, and time.
I remind myself that voting is a privilege earned for me by a centuries long list of activists who endured incarceration, starvation, police beatings, dog-attacks, being shot, and watching their classmates be shot.
They endured all this so we could tick a small box on a ballot and have our voices heard.

On behalf of the next generation, I make this plea: honor the Americans who fought, and continue to fight, for our right to vote.

If you’re still not convinced why you should register now and then vote on November 6th, I give you the words of Edmund Burke – “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

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4 AM WAKE-UP CALL

8/17/2018

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Here's my guilty secret - I’m a disaster movie mega-buff. It's a slight obsession. I watch them with pleasure while I'm shredding papers, organizing files or performing other tasks that require entertainment distraction. If you wanna watch movies about tornadoes, volcanos, floods, alien invasion, I’m your gal. I’ll bring the popcorn. No shark-tornados or monster-alligators, please. After growing up in Florida, I’ve seen enough of those gnarly-toothed animals to last a lifetime.

As a disaster movie mega buff, I take pride in my all-encompassing knowledge of how to prepare for a disaster.
Recently, however, I was served a big slice of humble pie when my apartment building caught on fire.

The alarm went off at 4 AM. It was loud. Ear-banging loud. I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my phone and my emergency to-go disaster bag that I keep by the front door (good little disaster prep artist that I am) and raced down the five flights of stairs to the front sidewalk - quick shout out to my fireman friend who advised me to never live higher than the ladder on a fire truck can reach (100 vertical feet).

As I stood shivering in the cold, I realized that although I had my cell phone, passport, some cash, and my ‘can’t lose or I’m screwed’ documents, I was standing on the street in my pajamas. Without my glasses. In house slippers.
If the whole building went up, not only would I squint my way through the day, in my pajamas, but I’d lost my password book (yeah, I’m old school and I write them down), my wallet, and the I-pad I’m writing this on. Oh, and I had forgotten to charge my phone the night before and my battery was down to 20%. Well, crap.

So, this is my public service announcement from a chagrined disaster movie mega-buff:
Prepare a thorough to-go backpack.
Now.
You can find cheap backpacks or large purses at Goodwill that will do nicely. At a minimum, put in it the following:
1.      Cash – at least $20 so you can buy yourself some coffee while you wait to see what happens. Put in more if you can afford it. Some disaster prep books suggest you have enough for a night at a hotel, or a plain/train/bus ticket to family and friends.
2.      All your ‘I’m screwed if I lose’ documents in a water proof bag – zip lock freezer bags work great.
3.      A change of clothes and street shoes – sweats and a t-shirt are fine, but you might want to add a jacket in case the alarm goes off in the winter.
4.      If you have children, include any necessary items for them – some snacks, a toy, change of clothes, diapers, etc.
5.      If you have a pet, include some treats, a toy, and a can of food.
6.      An extra charger for your phone.
7.      Extra pair of glasses if you have them.
8.      Xerox copies of your credit cards, front and back, your driver’s license, your passport, and your prescriptions.
9.      A portable first-aid kit – you can buy one the size of a wallet.

Feel free to add items that are important to you. The bag may be heavy, but believe me, it will be worth it.

Random things to also take care of:
1.      Upload passwords to a secure online site like Keepers Security.
2.      Stay up-to-date on uploading all important files to the Cloud in case you forget to grab your I-pad or Chromebook.
3.      Establish a meeting place for your family members if your home or apartment becomes inaccessible (e.g. the coffee shop around the corner).
4.      Set up a contact person that everyone can call for information or to check on status – preferably someone who doesn’t live in your town, so they aren’t impacted by the disaster.
5.      If you don’t have homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, get it! Policies can be as low as $18 a month – that’s one designer pizza.
6.      Take pictures of your possessions in case you need to file an insurance claim.
Please understand this emergency bag is for a building fire or other minor disasters. For earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, etc., you need this and more to be prepared. In the case of these bigger types of emergencies, you will need to be ready to survive a minimum of three days on your own. To do that, I HIGHLY recommend Bob Mayer’s e-book: Prepare Now Survive Later. He breaks everything down into manageable steps and levels of preparedness.

That concludes this service announcement.

I’m signing off to go shred some old files...and maybe watch Twister for the fifteenth time.

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5 Ways to Survive the Roller Coaster

8/14/2018

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Life, the world, well, everything, is pretty wild right now. Weirdness abounds. The hair pulling kind. The ‘I’ll have that second martini please – wait, I don’t drink anymore – damn, okay, the ‘I’ll have a giant piece of chocolate’, kind.
We’ve done a rewind to the era when we didn’t understand that asbestos kills you, carbon emissions are bad for the atmosphere (whether we created them or not), radium was considered a beauty aid, and it’s okay to dump coal slush in a river.
There is a rumor that we have passed through a portal to a new paradigm. In this paradigm, humanity is evolving to a kinder, gentler way of being. Yay. What we are seeing now is the last gasp of the old, self-immolating ways.
There is also another rumor that a squirrel snuck into the Hadron Collider and the little bugger knocked us into a parallel universe that isn’t as great.
Either way, right now is tough. You can build your own rocket and take your chances on Mars, become an ostrich and stick your head in the sand, or find a deserted island to live on – no wait, that won’t work because sea levels actually are rising. Okay, you can hide on a mountain top somewhere.
In lieu of all these possibilities, may I suggest the following 5 actions to keep your sanity . . . or at least what’s left of it.
Turn off your digital life for ten minutes a day. I know, I know, you want the umbilical cord connected at all times in order to stay informed, connected, amped, whatever. Ten minutes is only ten minutes. In that ten minutes, pause, pay attention to your breath. Breathing is an amazing experience. On the in-breath you are taking in life. Tiny oxygen particles combined with nitrogen particles with a bunch of other stuff (ignore the toxins) in this awesome combination that allows life to exist on our planet. It’s truly awesome, right? Now, on the out breath, you can exhale all the insane, mean, weird things you managed to wade through to get to this exact moment in your day. . . and your breath is proof of that. Well done.
Find some flowers. Real ones. Smell them, for a long time. Smell them until the bliss rolls through your body and gratitude fills you for these incredible blossoms so loved by the bees . . . and you. Then smell them again.
Watch a sunset. I’d suggest watching a sunrise, but that isn’t going to happen where I live. The shining yellow orb hits the skies at 430 AM. I’m not that motivated. So, watching a sunset is doable. Savor the colors. If you are unfortunate enough to live in the areas covered with smoke from the fires, if it’s any consolation to the crappy air, Mother Earth is known to provide kick-ass good sunsets through the smoke haze.
Tell someone in your life how important they are to you. How knowing them is an honor – because it is. It doesn’t have to be a close friend or family member, though it can be. There are 7.6 billion humans on this planet, and out of all those humans, you two have met each other. You’ve shared time together. Maybe even supported each other through a rough spot. Tell them it’s an honor and a privilege to share being human with them.
Finally, once a day, cultivate a sense of goodwill. Not just be kind. I mean cultivate Good-Will. It’s one of the most basic spiritual qualities of the human being. Try and approach life with an attitude of cooperation toward another human. Deeply listen to what they are saying. Reserve judgment. Offer support.
You can cultivate goodwill more than once a day, of course. You can spend your whole day, heck, your whole life, cultivating goodwill inside yourself. It will be stupendous if we all do. But doing it is hard, so once a day is a good place to start. This will set up a ripple, both inside you and in your community. This ripple will grow and touch others and others and well, you get the drift.
We can create a 100th monkey effect of goodwill. Imagine what this paradigm will be like if everyone’s first thought every day is ‘how can I cultivate Good-Will’. One breath, then another. Watch that sunset. Smell that flower. Help a stranger.
This wild ride will slow down. I promise.

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We The People

4 AM WAKE-UP CALL

5 Ways to Survive the Roller Coaster

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