Birthdays that end in zero are milestones to be celebrated, or completely ignored, depending on your point of view. I choose to celebrate my milestone by writing about the beauty and value of older women. Too often, the presence of older women can be used to delegitimize a good cause. There were several editorials about Women’s Marches calling them irrelevant because so many of the women involved were old, limping, and decrepit.
Maybe I should be used to this dismissive language, I’ve heard it often enough. I’m reminded of the time I gave a presentation at a national interfaith workshop in Huntsville. Wrapping up, I asked for comments from an audience of woman chaplains and pastors. The first question had everyone nodding their heads, “How do you get people to listen to you? Once I turned sixty nobody cared what I thought or said.”
It is heartbreaking to see voiceless, innocent children imprisoned with their mothers in a heavily congested adult prison cell with little or no care to prepare them for the future. If we agree there is a 60% chance for a child of a convict to be convicted, then what will become of a child neglected to the nurture hood of a prison environment that is electrified with disgust?
The huge number of out-of-school-children is already becoming alarming and a very large percentage of them are used by terrorists in the northern part of Nigeria as suicide bombers. It should be a call for urgent concern globally to see children who should have been in school, but remain on the street, getting arrested and thrown into adult prisons for trying to survive from street selling. Don’t forget the handicapped and sick inmates who need help to stay alive in a prison structure designed to drain hope from healthy minds.
To celebrate my birthday, I addressed a group of Global Scholars at Chattanooga State Community College on the societal trends in this political environemnt through the lens of cultural anthropology. Chattanooga is experiencing major cultural shifts as globalization transforms the South’s demographics. We are very much in need of a new generation with global leadership skills, multicultural expertise, and political involvement.
Recently my wife and youngest son were riveted to live images on his laptop of my eight month old granddaughter crawling around on a living room floor pausing occasionally to pull herself on furniture to explore stuff. Although her 9 year old brother was preoccupied in another room, the baby’s 8 year old sister pranced in and out of the screen smiling and waving at us. Like us, their proud mom and dad – my daughter-in-law and son – could be heard laughing and relishing these precious moments.
And for a few seconds later, I conjured up recent images of those immigrant kids on the southern border literally caged up like animals and separated from their parents. Unlike for us – and the majority of native born citizens of the United States – those precious moments are few and far between for those parents.
Okay – before reading further, think on the aforementioned two paragraphs for a few moments from your perspective as a parent and/or grandparent with your loved ones in mind.
At the center of the contentious immigration debate; the finger-pointing and the promise to “build a wall” on the southern border, are human beings who like everyone else want opportunities for a better life for themselves and their loved ones. “Nadia” is no exception.
But let’s start this at the end, that being a gut wrenching decision by her family to finally pack up and relocate to the relative safety of Winnipeg, Canada. A dozen or so years fighting through the immigration system, the bureaucracy, the morass and the constant fear of deportation can wear down even the strongest of the strong.
Before going in for brain surgery in 2013, I feared that studying, researching and thinking too much about my condition would leave me bereft of hope. I dreaded being swept up with sadness or anxiety or both. I resolved to trust in all my doctors and in the destiny already laid out before me. To achieve that state of mind I returned to reciting the quatrains found in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. As a result, I was able to enter Virginia Mason Hospital calm, a bit exhausted, and filled with acceptance.
Here’s what teenage global leaders-in-training had to say when asked what a young global leader should know. The words of wisdom come from high school and middle school students participating in the American Diversity Report Youth Global Leadership Class. Enjoy their timeless advice and then read what leadership experts said about preparing the upcoming generation of leaders.
When most people hear about workplace harassment it’s likely to be sexual harassment, especially in today’s #MeToo era. But sexual harassment is just one of multiple unlawful bases of harassment in the employment context.
More than just sexual harassment…
Other forms of job harassment usually don’t get the same amount of national media attention, unless the case is particularly egregious — such as racial harassment involving a hangman’s noose, KKK graffiti or the N-word.
I didn’t know Bill Nordmark. And I’m probably not alone. That is until his name appeared on the obituary page of a local newspaper. “Bill Nordmark fought polio as a child and racism as an adult, all the while believing that one person can make a difference,” the opening paragraph read. Two years ago he embarked on a mission to forge better race relations – two people at a time – through what became known as a “Friendship Initiative.”
You see, that line and the rest of the story about Bill Nordmark (I’ll get to some of it further down), conjured up for me a line from one of my favorite authors, William Faulkner. “You move a mountain one stone at a time!”
Birthdays that end in zero are milestones to be celebrated, or completely ignored, depending on your point of view. I choose to celebrate my milestone by writing about the beauty and value of older women. Too often, the presence of older women can be used to delegitimize a good cause. There were several editorials about Women’s Marches calling them irrelevant because so many of the women involved were old, limping, and decrepit.
