Category Archives: people
Mom
Mothers are all slightly insane.
-J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
I’m rather good at pooh-poohing most Hallmark days. They’re too commercial, designed to sell cards and gifts.
One that is hard for me to put neatly in this category is Mother’s Day – even if it is every bit as commercial as all the rest. In fact, Mother’s Day is one of the most commercialized of the lot. This year over $17 billion (yes, billion) will be spent in the U.S. alone on Mother’s Day – jewelers, florists and restaurants are the leading beneficiaries.
Yet, for me this day somehow retains a sacred part to it.
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Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing.
~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987
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I don’t need a Mother’s Day to remind me of mom but it sure feels wonderful to celebrate her on a special day.
And to say thank you from the bottom of my heart – for life and for complete and unconditional love and caring. How lucky for me!
Go ahead, don’t hold back. If you can say the same, you should. Loudly.
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When your mother asks, “Do you want a piece of advice?” it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.
-Erma Bombeck
A Remarkable Story of Progress
Sometimes, it gets to be so tiring listening to the day’s news. All that crap and bad news that gets thrown our way!
If it’s not a religious war, it’s an act of terror. Then, it’s a beaten down economy, a building collapse that kills, or corrupt politicians.
So, it feels great when you can take a deliberate step back and find something quite different. Like progress.
This post is about compelling, big-league progress – in medical science, in governance and for humanity, against a dreaded disease. It’s progress worth talking about.
Polio has been one of the most debilitating disease of this century.
Therefore, it’s great to discover, to share and to spread some wonderful news about polio –
- In 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio reported worldwide. In 2012? Two hundred and twenty-three. Yes, that’s 223 (and only 22 cases reported so far this year).
- The last remaining cases of polio in the world are limited to three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria)
- India has been polio free for more than two years!
- Since 1988, the polio vaccine has prevented more than 10 million cases of paralysis and more than 500,000 deaths
Now, that’s what I call remarkable progress. You can take that to the bank!
And what a great way to start your day and week, instead of the usual bad crap that ends up taking too much space in your brain. Right?
Click on the photo to see what The Gates Foundation is doing to eradicate polio
[With progress comes responsibility. The CDC says that if children are not vaccinated against polio, i.e., if we were to stop our current vaccination efforts, then within a decade we would see a resurgence of polio that could paralyze more than 200,000 children worldwide every year].
The WHO, UNICEF and the Gates Foundation have been pouring in their resources to ensure that the disease gets eradicated. Many of the successful processes used in India are being tapped to focus on the last three remaining countries where polio continues to exist.
The goal?
That the world is completely polio free by 2015. And stays that way.
With all the focus that exists on reaching this goal and the positive trends so far, it’s fair to assume that this will meet with success.
Did you know that polio would then be only the second disease (after smallpox) in all of human history that would be completely eradicated due to progress in medical science?
Phenomenal, celebration-worthy progress indeed!
Do spread the word.
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The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 