Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the
neighborhoodHop a flight to Miami Beach or Hollywood.
I'm taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River line-
I'm in a New York state of mind.
- Billy Joel, New York State of Mind
The cure for lemurs is more lemurs. In fact, it's dancing lemurs.
About an hour ago, I heard gut-wrenching sobbing coming from the basement. It was Iain. And the only thing to induce such heartbreak in my little boy? A video game that just isn't going his way.
Don't judge me.
So, he dragged his sad sorry self upstairs, crying about the lemurs. "I can't get the two lemurs to roll the ball up the hill," he cried. "There's too many hills and too many coooornerssss in my Madagascar game. I need he-elp." Oh the sadness. Oh the angst. Oh the continued sobbing when I told him I certainly couldn't help. He's better at the damn game than me.
The one thing about Iain, however, is that it doesn't take much to cheer him up. I hugged him tight, gave him a cuddle and said, "Want to see something that will make you smile?"
So I showed him this.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
By the end, we were both grinning from ear to ear. Thanks Matt.
This post isn't about how Mother's Day was celebrated in our house today. It isn't about the homemade cards so delightfully crafted by my children and it isn't about me honouring my own mother.
It is about the very beginnings of Mother's Day. And it's about the idea that mothers and women everywhere can be a force for peace in the world. That we who have the power of our destiny have the right and responsibility to be the agency of that peace.
During the American Civil War, Julia Ward Howe had seen first hand the devastation and carnage of war. In 1870 she wrote the proclamation below as a call for women to unite together for change and to shift the way the world views war. I believe her words ring just as true today as when she wrote them. I leave them with you. Happy Mother's Day.
Mother's Day Proclamation
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not betaken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
-Julia Ward Howe
Graphically violent video games as propoganda for the Western military machine? My friend Dave over at theoblog.ca explores this idea in a video he created. Watch the video and read his analysis here. Interposed between the difficult-to-watch killing and maiming, is my not-at-all-difficult-to-watch (in my humble opinion) son, Iain.
And before you call Children's Aid, no, Iain was not playing those games when he was being filmed. For the record.
Nothing works better at inciting me to blog than looking at my Statcounter statistics. Statcounter tells me who (sort of) is checking me out, where they are from, how long they stayed, what posts were viewed, and whether they were a new visitor or a returning visitor. As a result, I figure, since people are occasionally stumbling upon my blog or returning to see if I’m still alive, I should put something new here. Speaking of which, I'll take this opportunity to thank all of you returning visitors who check in here every so often just to see if your RSS feed is broken. It's not. Your feed has been telling you the truth; I really haven't posted anything since December. But I appreciate your interest.
More than all of that though, like many of you, I love checking the keyword analysis utility in Statcounter. I’ve learned that quite a few people out there would like to know how to make boiled raisin cake. Or urgently need to know what rancid shortening looks and smells like. And I'm glad I can help with issues like that, although I'm sure the person searching for play date etiquette did not count on how we had to prepare our son.
For many keyword searches I've been no help at all. Fundraising permission slips? Sorry. Hockey equipment for babies. What the hell? Strangely, many searchers seem to be concerned with black ops training and the term "maiden, mother, crone." I'm sure my mystical, practical, and probably confusing ramblings did nothing to help their search. Again, better luck next time.
I only hope the person searching “children eating rancid shortening” found some appropriate advice. Good luck with that. Hope your child is okay.
As for me, I think I’ll check my Statcounter more often and become inspired. But I promise this will be the last post about my keyword stats. That’s been done to death.
