SoCS: Stepping Away from Toxic News

Welcome back to our SoCS host, Linda, and thanks again to Dan for filling in last week.

Here’s today’s prompt: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “-tast-.” Find a word that contains “tast” and use it in your post. Enjoy!

The first word I thought about was “fantastic.” But I haven’t been feeling all that fantastic lately. Not awful, nothing serious. But why am I so tired sometimes for no apparent reason?  I can rally to get the basics done, but sometimes I feel drained.

Sue Dreamwalker writes about how our energy is affected by what’s going on in the world, and sometimes we need more rest to cope. Maybe that’s it. I generally don’t watch much news. I’m picky. But lately, I’ve been getting sucked into the news about the impeachment inquiry.  Then on Wednesday,  I took my car in for maintenance, and though I had my computer and worked on yesterday’s post, the TV in the car dealer’s waiting room was on Fox News. It got toxic after awhile. Other people were there on their phones or with books and didn’t seem to mind. I kept thinking Fox News would move on to some other topic, but no, it went on and on with clips of 45  that one political issue.

It turned out I need to go back for two tires they had to order. The staff person asked it I wanted to wait on Monday or drop off the car. I asked her,

“Do you always have Fox News on your TV?”

“No, we usually have it on HGTV.”

“That would be better. I can tolerate the news for a little while but after awhile it gets…..”  I shook my head indicating crazy.

“I understand. There’s a remote there for anyone to use. If you decide to wait Monday, I’ll make sure it’s on something else.”

My plan is to have my husband take me to lunch while they put tires on the car. AND not to watch the news. I need to go back to being more choosy. Using the internet allows me to check the headlines, and I have to resist the urge to watch certain clips and also seek the balance of good news.

But back to fantastic. It’s related to the word fantasy. We can all use a little healthy fantasy, especially when the fantasy is about something we want to happen, and it’s realistic, or at least possible, which everything ultimately is. I fantasized about a soul mate who would be a good fit, and eventually, that’s what I got.

What if we fantasize about world leaders who have intelligence and compassion, who care about the environment and realize that it’s crucial to take care of the planet. A Department of Peace, imagine that. Imagine/fantasize/dream about a world that puts more energy and resources into peace than war. Imagine all adults acting like grownups.

I’m expecting fantastic weather this weekend. We’ll be going from the upper 90s to the 70s for a high. I bet that will give me some energy. And not watching any news this weekend. That’s my plan.

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For more information on SoCS, visit Linda Hill’s blog:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-5-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

SoCS: Recovery Rap, Peace, and , and Pet Adoption

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wrap/rap.” Linda says to “use one, use both (for bonus points), use ’em any way you’d like. Enjoy!”

I wish I could think of a clever way to write about wrap. And maybe I will before this is over. You never know. Rap is a genre of music I don’t much care for. But there are exceptions. Didn’t Eminem do something good a while back? Let me see…. Something about recovery and getting clean?

“I’m not afraid (I’m not afraid) to take a stand (to take a stand)

Everybody (Everybody) come take my hand (come take my hand)

We’ll walk this road together

Through the storm

Whatever weather

Cold or warm

Letting you know you’re not alone

Holler if you feel like you’ve been down the same road.”

                                                                                                              Eminem

I typed that listening to this YouTube video which seems to have a lot of F words in it, so I just shared the chorus which is less rappy. But it just goes to show you that there’s good stuff in any genre. Everything bad has something good in it, and everything good has some bad in it. Cept for Jesus. I don’t know, that’s just what my stream of consciousness says.

Back to rap. It’s kinda funny that my YouTube debut, and only performance on that venue so far, is where I’m doing rap.  It’s about adopting pets that are homeless instead of buying from a “puppy shop.”  We auditioned and everything, and I was chosen to be one of the rappers, but didn’t know I’d be in the role of Mom until the day I showed up and some other people didn’t show. So it’s about the family going to pick out a dog at the pound, aka, animal control, which is now part of our county sheriff’s department. Anyway, it was fun. I’ll find the video in a minute.

I’m signed up to volunteer at the Humane Society. I did that many years ago and since I only have one dog left who’s 17, I went to donate some dog food and ended up signing up to volunteer which I had been thinking about. While there, the staff person and I discussed the “no kill,” label. She said there really is no such thing since all shelters have to euthanize or transfer some animals who are very sick or not adoptable. To be “no kill” a shelter has to not euthanize more than a certain percentage of the animals they take in.

This is depressing, but sometimes we need to face reality and see how we can do something to make it a little better. Like the climate strike and not using plastic straws and writing to congress. Every little bit helps create ripples. Which reminds me that today is the International Day of Peace. I feel strongly, believe strongly, that we need to have a Department of Peace in the US. It should get just as much funding as the Department of War, or defense, or whatever it’s called.  I could look for a rap song about peace. But I don’t want to, because maybe we need some diversity in this post.

Where do we go from here? Maybe we can go on the Peace Train!

 

And if you want to see me as a rappin’ mom, it’s in this video which was made 8 years ago when I had a different last name. (My friend, Paul is wearing the goofy hat. He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.)

Happy Peace Day!

To join in the Saturday Stream of Consciousness, or read more streams, visit:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/09/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-21-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

Good News Tuesday: Helpers, Food Choices, and Peace at the Ocean

Seeking Balance One Tuesday at a Time

Helpers During Hurricane Dorian

Airbnb has activated their “open home policy” listing houses that are free during the hurricane in Florida and surrounding states. From my GoodNewsletter, here’s the link.

Airlines like Delta are waiving pet-in-cabin and baggage fees for hurricane evacuees and capping fees for flights out of Florida and other states. If you and your pets are evacuating the area, consider this opportunity and keep your pets safe.

Chella Phillips rescued 97 dogs in the Bahamas. They’re all at her house. She manages The Voiceless Dogs of Nassau, Bahamas.

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Food Choices for the Environment

A survey commissioned by Sweet Earth Foods and conducted by OnePoll found that of the 57% of millennials who follow a special diet 44% do so because it’s better for the environment and 37% because it’s more ethical. It’s the environment that I want to focus on today, though ethics plays a large part in my own diet. Consuming a more plant-based diet is better for the environment for at least two reasons. One is that it takes less land and less energy to grow crops than it does to raise and process animals for food. The other reason is that rainforest destruction is often committed to make room for beef cattle.  I don’t know why they only surveyed millennials. Anyone can move toward a more plant-based diet. Eating local is better for the environment, too and something I want to work on. You can read more about the survey in this article from The Good News Network.

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Israelis and Palestinians at the Ocean

Some Palestinians who live less than an hour away from the ocean have never seen it. That’s because they need a permit to travel across the Israeli military border. So, for the last four years, Robby Berman, with help from fellow Israelis, has been organizing trips to bring Palestinian families to the beach at Tel Aviv. Think about this: We are all made up mostly of water, so it makes sense that sharing this experience with the ocean helps create friendship and peace.

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Got good news?

Please share in the comments!

SoCS: Coexist

Welcome to Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Here’s the prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “co-” Find a word that uses “co” as a prefix and use it in your post. Have fun!

Okay. Here we go!

 

Coexist, dammit!

I’m talking to everyone. If I was yelling, I’d write, COEXIST DAMMIT! Yes. I’m feeling that. This goes out to North and South Korea. And America who needs to stay out of it. Mind your own damn business. We have enough to work on right here in the USA. Plenty to clean up in our own back yard. People with different beliefs, different religions, different races, be friends if you want. It’s possible and enriching. Listen to each other without trying to change someone’s mind. Learn something new, or at least try to understand. But if you don’t want to be friends, then mind your own business and leave each other alone.

I know it might not be that simple, but is it really that hard? I don’t think so.

A few days ago, I saw a lot of people on my neighborhood on-line thing? network? whatever, who were upset about a plan to cut down a group of very old live oak trees to put up another car wash in our county.  I jumped right in there, ready to do a tree sit, or at least bring my guitar and sing,  “They paved paradise, put up a parking lot,” which is really titled “Big Yellow Taxi.” It’s the one song I know by heart and don’t have to look at the chords to play.

 

I emailed all the county commissioners and left a phone message for the county planning department. I found a lot of comments on the county Facebook page from citizens opposed to cutting down the trees and added my 2 cents.

I’m gonna have to take a picture of them (the trees) for Thursday tree love. Live oaks are the ones whose branches get really low sometimes. They are beautifully reaching out, majestic. Here’s one I took a picture of at Brookgreen Gardens where my husband proposed.

The trees that were on the chopping block for the car wash aren’t this big, but they’re beautiful and over 200 years old.

So a couple of hours after I left the message, I got a call back from the county planning office. One of the staff members said the director was meeting with the owner of the property and they are trying to find a way to save the trees. I thought that was pretty cool that I got a phone call back so soon. By the next day, there was an article in the paper that the property owner does not plan to cut down any trees. He sounded like he got the message loud and clear that a whole lotta people care about trees around here, and he wants to be a good steward. The lesson here is that a small group of committed people CAN make a difference as Margaret Mead said. And we are not such a small group.

Still, at least half of the county commissioners, how shall I say… lean heavily in favor of “developers,” and don’t really care much about trees. But the tree ordinance is going to be reviewed at the next meeting. Maybe I’ll go and wear green. Yeah, maybe I’m just an old hippie tree hugger, but there are plenty more of us, so watch out!

Getting back to, Is it really so hard to co-exist, the property owner is presenting a revised plan which will save the live oaks and still build the car wash. So, why didn’t he do that in the first place? It didn’t take long to figure out how to coexist with the trees.  Maybe people who want to build stuff will figure out before it’s too late that trees give us oxygen. We depend on them.

Trees keep the air on.

I paraphrased that from this interview with Matthew Sleeth, who wrote a book called, Reforesting Faith. 

I just realized I wasn’t minding my own business when I went to bat for the trees, except that protecting trees is my business.  Protecting.  Coexisting. Okay, it can get complicated. I didn’t say it was easy. But it’s not that hard. We can figure this out.

Well, I got a lot of words here so need to rap this up. Watch out for old hippie ladies with guitars and come sing along.

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Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G. Hill. For more info, visit:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-17-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

 

Good News Tuesday: Bystanders, A Man of Peace, and Teamwork on the Trail

Seeking Balance One Tuesday at a Time

 

Bystander Myth Debunked – People Help Each Other

New research confirms my belief that the larger the crowd, the more potential helpers there are. “The study finds that in nine out of 10 incidents, at least one bystander intervened, with an average of 3.8 interveners.” The abstract from American Psychologist stated that “typically several” people will help. The old “bystander effect” myth was apparently started by research done in a laboratory and possibly reports of unfortunate but exceptional incidents. The new study used data from surveillance videos of arguments or assaults in the three large and diverse cities of Amsterdam, Cape Town, and Lancaster, England and found no significant differences in helping between these cities.

It suggests that people are willing to self-police to protect their communities and others. That’s in line with the research of urban criminologist Patrick Sharkey, who finds that stronger neighborhood organizations, not a higher quantity of policing, have fueled the Great Crime Decline.

You can read more about the study published in American Psychologist in this article from Citylab

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Honoring A Man of Peace and Harmony

“An 83-year-old Muslim cleric who hid 262 Christians (and Muslims) in his home and mosque during an attack in central Nigeria” was honored Wednesday in Washington. The Imam, Abubakar Abdullahi, < (click his name for a moving interview) along with four religious leaders from Sudan, Iraq, Brazil and Cyprus, were awarded the 2019 the International Religious Freedom Award. Here’s the story from CNN.

“God had a reason for creating us as diverse humans. No one has a reason to question the existence of the other. If God had wanted otherwise, he would have created us the same. We must embrace the diversity that God has created and strive to live in peace with each other everywhere in the world…. God wants us to live together in peace…. We should all respect one another. Follow the rules and be selfless advocates for peace.”

Imam, Abubakar Abdullahi

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On the Trail

Melanie was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair to get around. Trevor became blind recently due to glaucoma. They both live in Colorado and met in an adaptive adaptive boxing class. What a wonderful adventure it must have been to realize they could hike together as a team! She’s the eyes; he’s the legs. Check it out!

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Got good news? Please share in the comments!

It can be global, local, or personal.

Feel free to write a good news post of your own and link it back here.

Good News Tuesday: Baby Holding, Rings of Peace, and a Father Confronts Bullying with Compassion

Stranger Holds Baby While Mom Does Paperwork – Photo gets over a Million Likes.

This grandfather asked to hold a stranger’s baby so the mother could fill out paperwork. Mom said yes. The photo shared on Facebook got over a million likes even though no one in the photo is in FB. People want good news,too. Maybe mainstream media is starting to get it?  You can read more of the story here.

Rings of Peace Around Toronto Synagogues

Hundreds of people of different faiths showed support for synagogues in Toronto Saturday by being part of the Rings of Peace.

You can read more about the Rings of Peace here.

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Father Confronts Son’s Bully with Compassion

In confronting his son’s bully, this father found out the older boy was being bullied himself for wearing the same clothes. The wise father used empathy, listening, and compassion to turn torment into friendship. Thanks to Good Morning America for covering this story.

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Looking for balance one Tuesday at a time.

Got good news?

Feel free to share!

Good News Tuesday: Support for The Tree of Life Synagogue, Signing Students, and a 94 Year Old Wise Guy

Muslim groups raise over $125,000 to help Pittsburgh synagogue victims

People of many faiths are helping the victims and families of The Tree of Life synagogue where a shooting took the lives of 11 people in Pittsburgh Saturday. It gives me hope to know that among the helpers are two Muslim-American non-profits who have exceeded their fundraising  goal in the campaign, “Muslims Unite For Pittsburgh Synagogue.”

Below are two links for the story. The first is from nbcnews.com and the second is an earlier story from The Times of Israel.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-raise-more-120-000-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-survivors-n925796

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-muslims-raise-over-100000-for-synagogue-victims/

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Kindergarten Class Signs Happy Birthday to Custodian Who is Deaf:

Watch how this beloved custodian reacts to kindergarten students signing the Happy Birthday lyrics especially for him.  Happy Birthday, Mr. James!

 

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94 Year Old Veteran Greets Students with Wisdom and Fist Bumps

Wally Richardson meets middle school students every morning with positive wisdom and encouragement. I love his motivational call/response technique. Take a look!

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Good News Tuesday seeks to bring some balance to media, one Tuesday at a time.

 Feel free to share, YOUR good news in the comments!