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Many of you know that I am involved in several Harry Potter online discussion groups. One of them has several international members, including two from Iran.
I inquired after them the other day, what with the violence they've been experiencing there, and one of them, a young man named Amir, wrote me back privately. He's written me before, but I hadn't heard from him in a while. Here's his post.
Hi dear Strider.
I saw that you mentioned about Iran in one of your posts. Yes, Iran is dangerous now, but as you know, freedom is something that is hard to achieve. Many of our young people have been killed by the hands of the government, like Neda for example (Neda was a young girl that was killed by anti riot police, I think that you know of her).
Many of our people were tired of Ahmadi Nejad, because not only he was stealing people's money and ruining Iran, He was destroying Iran's relationships with other countries. So, our people went to the other candidate's side, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi. These candidates were the enemies and rivals of Ahmadi Nejad. They wanted to repair all that Ahmadi Nejad has ruined. But you know, government used fraud and cheating in the election. And now, people of Iran are protesting.
BUT, we cannot do this alone. We need support, from all of the people in the world, I didn't mentioned this in the group messages because I thought that it is not good to talk about politics in the group.
Strider, we need support from the U.S.A and Europe, from their people, from their governments. It is time to leave the past and help each other.
Please, tell this to anyone you can, that Iranian people need support from other countries, we need someone to rescue us from the hands of our murderer governments, from the great satan, Ayatollah Khameneii.
Here's what I wrote back:
Thank you for writing to me about this. I wish I had some influence over our government policies; as you know, our President is new and we aren't quite sure what he will do when it comes to the relationship between our countries.
I will tell people what you've told me, and I can always write letters and send emails to our representatives in the government. I'll do whatever I can. You're right, freedom is hard to acheive...but worth the fight, I think.
God bless you and your country,
Strider
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Ed McMahon, 1923-2009
Ed McMahon, one of the ringing voices from my childhood, died early this morning in Los Angeles. If you're interested in knowing more, I blogged about him here.
A couple of fun facts: Ed was Catholic and went to Catholic University, and he was a Marine fighter pilot in WWII and Korea. He first worked with Johnny Carson on a 50's game show called "Do You Trust Your Wife?"
I remember being at my grandparents' house, and if I heard Ed's voice doing his famous, "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!" then I knew I was up too late. After that it was the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes commercials and Star Search.
He led a pretty interesting life (I wrote more about it at that other blog), but he'd been doing badly the past few years, including suffering from bone cancer and a broken neck. I'm glad he's free from the pain now.
Rest in peace, Ed.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
A Guest Blog By My Sweetie
The following reflection on Fathers' Day was written by my husband and fellow writer. I thought it contained some pretty important thoughts, and I wanted to share them with you.
So, here it is, Fathers' Day again, and twice in the past twenty-four hours I have heard people—well, men actually; specifically fathers—refer to the day in ways that make it sound like the consolation prize/year's-worth-of-Free-Turtle-Wax version of Mothers' Day.
Yesterday, driving into Kansas City to visit my own father, a disc jockey asked men to call in and tell her whether Fathers' Day was a 'real' holiday or a made-up holiday. The first man to call in was himself a father who affirmed that it is, indeed, a made-up holiday. His wife, he said, deserves her own holiday, but he certainly doesn't. When pressed, he said that she puts up with the kids, works outside the home as well as within, generally makes life nice for everyone in the house, and he doesn't do much of anything.
The disc jockey tried to wheedle him into admitting he does more than he was letting on. “Noooothing?” she asked. “You don't even take out the traaaash?”
“Oh, I do some things,” he said, “mostly around the house and with the car. I do stuff with the kids when she needs a break.”
“But you have a job, right? You bring home a paycheck.”
“Oh, sure, sure. But she does the real work. What I do is nothing. She's the one who needs a special day, not me.”
A few hours later, I was talking with a friend on the phone and he mentioned that his wife is upset because she can't afford to make a big deal out of Fathers' Day this year. Their family finances have been upset by an unexpected death in the family, a long, drawn-out trip to Arkansas, and lost shifts at the hospital. The checking account is bare. At dinner last night, he said, she broke into tears because he gave her a great Mothers' Day and she can't reciprocate. And his response was to put his arms around her and coax a smile out of her by saying, “Sweetheart, Mothers' Day is a real holiday.”
He wouldn't dream of not celebrating Mothers' Day in a big way, he told me. But Fathers' Day? It's enough that she would do something if she could. He really doesn't need anything more than that, because he doesn't really do anything around the house anyway.
These are not isolated sentiments. My own father and both my grandfathers used to say the same thing: Mothers' Day is real, Fathers' Day isn't. And the sense seemed to be that everyday is Fathers' Day when you get to go to work, and deal with the kids only a few hours a day, and come home to a cooked meal, and not go through childbirth.
A massively informal poll I conducted with this one friend on the phone, the guy on the radio, and my two brothers, seems to confirm that men see Mothers' Day as the day they formally thank their wives for 364 days of work (365 if the women have to clean up from their own Mothers' Day breakfast-in-bed), and Fathers' Day is the day they feel guilty—perhaps are purposely made to feel guilty, under the guise of being 'appreciated'—for not doing much of anything. I call this the 'Fathers' Day as Giant Stick to Goad Me Into Doing More Around the House'-theory of the holiday.
Sounds like a conspiracy to me. If it's true. But I don't think it's true.
I think what's going on is that men are trained now, from an early age, to think of their contribution as niggling compared to the contribution made by their wives. This might be an unintended result of the Women's Movement, I don't know. I wonder if it's not the adult male corollary of something I see my children do, when I say to one, “You did a great job on that picture,” and the other will say, “Why don't you like my picture?” Or I'll give one a hug and the other will say, “I'm not special.”
The idea seems to be that love (or praise or whatever) is a commodity, and there's only so much of it to go around. If I give it to one, then there's not enough left for all the others. I have to remind my children that love and praise and appreciation are not limited. They are drawn from a bottomless well; no one will go thirsty just because someone else's bucket is full.
Men—being the either/or, black-and-white thinkers that they are—have gone from thinking that theirs is the only contribution in the house that matters, to thinking that their contribution doesn't matter at all. Now that we celebrate what we used to derisively refer to as 'women's work,' now that we have two-income families and mom is just as likely as dad to work outside the home, there seems to be a sense among men that their contribution doesn't really matter anymore.
“She does the real work. What I do is nothing. She's the one who needs a special day, not me. I'm not special.”
With the men I know, that's not false modesty. They say that because they really believe it. My friend on the phone really believes it; the guy on the radio seems to believe it too.
Perhaps we should take the opportunity this Fathers' Day to remind our fathers that their contributions, however much they wish to downplay them, are real and vital—that their contribution is not less because others are now doing more.
Fathers' Day is not a consolation prize. It's a real holiday, just as real as Mothers' Day. Men should be helped to see what they do as enabling the family to function, in ways every bit as important as what their wives do.
The well of appreciation is bottomless; there's plenty enough to go around.
Yesterday, driving into Kansas City to visit my own father, a disc jockey asked men to call in and tell her whether Fathers' Day was a 'real' holiday or a made-up holiday. The first man to call in was himself a father who affirmed that it is, indeed, a made-up holiday. His wife, he said, deserves her own holiday, but he certainly doesn't. When pressed, he said that she puts up with the kids, works outside the home as well as within, generally makes life nice for everyone in the house, and he doesn't do much of anything.
The disc jockey tried to wheedle him into admitting he does more than he was letting on. “Noooothing?” she asked. “You don't even take out the traaaash?”
“Oh, I do some things,” he said, “mostly around the house and with the car. I do stuff with the kids when she needs a break.”
“But you have a job, right? You bring home a paycheck.”
“Oh, sure, sure. But she does the real work. What I do is nothing. She's the one who needs a special day, not me.”
A few hours later, I was talking with a friend on the phone and he mentioned that his wife is upset because she can't afford to make a big deal out of Fathers' Day this year. Their family finances have been upset by an unexpected death in the family, a long, drawn-out trip to Arkansas, and lost shifts at the hospital. The checking account is bare. At dinner last night, he said, she broke into tears because he gave her a great Mothers' Day and she can't reciprocate. And his response was to put his arms around her and coax a smile out of her by saying, “Sweetheart, Mothers' Day is a real holiday.”
He wouldn't dream of not celebrating Mothers' Day in a big way, he told me. But Fathers' Day? It's enough that she would do something if she could. He really doesn't need anything more than that, because he doesn't really do anything around the house anyway.
These are not isolated sentiments. My own father and both my grandfathers used to say the same thing: Mothers' Day is real, Fathers' Day isn't. And the sense seemed to be that everyday is Fathers' Day when you get to go to work, and deal with the kids only a few hours a day, and come home to a cooked meal, and not go through childbirth.
A massively informal poll I conducted with this one friend on the phone, the guy on the radio, and my two brothers, seems to confirm that men see Mothers' Day as the day they formally thank their wives for 364 days of work (365 if the women have to clean up from their own Mothers' Day breakfast-in-bed), and Fathers' Day is the day they feel guilty—perhaps are purposely made to feel guilty, under the guise of being 'appreciated'—for not doing much of anything. I call this the 'Fathers' Day as Giant Stick to Goad Me Into Doing More Around the House'-theory of the holiday.
Sounds like a conspiracy to me. If it's true. But I don't think it's true.
I think what's going on is that men are trained now, from an early age, to think of their contribution as niggling compared to the contribution made by their wives. This might be an unintended result of the Women's Movement, I don't know. I wonder if it's not the adult male corollary of something I see my children do, when I say to one, “You did a great job on that picture,” and the other will say, “Why don't you like my picture?” Or I'll give one a hug and the other will say, “I'm not special.”
The idea seems to be that love (or praise or whatever) is a commodity, and there's only so much of it to go around. If I give it to one, then there's not enough left for all the others. I have to remind my children that love and praise and appreciation are not limited. They are drawn from a bottomless well; no one will go thirsty just because someone else's bucket is full.
Men—being the either/or, black-and-white thinkers that they are—have gone from thinking that theirs is the only contribution in the house that matters, to thinking that their contribution doesn't matter at all. Now that we celebrate what we used to derisively refer to as 'women's work,' now that we have two-income families and mom is just as likely as dad to work outside the home, there seems to be a sense among men that their contribution doesn't really matter anymore.
“She does the real work. What I do is nothing. She's the one who needs a special day, not me. I'm not special.”
With the men I know, that's not false modesty. They say that because they really believe it. My friend on the phone really believes it; the guy on the radio seems to believe it too.
Perhaps we should take the opportunity this Fathers' Day to remind our fathers that their contributions, however much they wish to downplay them, are real and vital—that their contribution is not less because others are now doing more.
Fathers' Day is not a consolation prize. It's a real holiday, just as real as Mothers' Day. Men should be helped to see what they do as enabling the family to function, in ways every bit as important as what their wives do.
The well of appreciation is bottomless; there's plenty enough to go around.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Spooky Things
Recently I've been researching things like UFOs and the whole alien myth-or-fact argument. I have discovered that West Virginia is replete with stories of mysterious and spooky things--in my research Mothman and The Cornstalk Curse have been particularly relevant.
I have two friends that live in West Virginia, so I asked them if weird things ever happen where they live. Caina said not really, but she kind of wishes they would! Alicia, however, had a lot to say about it.
Here's what Alicia said:
So many. Most revolve around ghosts, from stories related to small-town, local family stuff (certain houses, roads, old forgotten grave yards, etc.) to bigger ones, like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA) which decided to profit off that whole "Ghost Hunters" show from Sci-Fi Channel. (Well, the new owners were already renovating and opening TALA to the public for tours, etc. before the show came along, but, still. .. Hell, I don't know why I sound bitter about it. I'd probably try to profit off it, too, haha.) I think any place that has an old abandoned mental health hospital or prison or school will have those kinds of stories.
The old West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville is supposedly ridiculously haunted - it has a reputation for having been a very cruel and unusual punishment kind of place, so...
As far as closer to my neck of the woods is concerned, two of my favorites are my county's courthouse (where Sid Hatfield was killed) and the old Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (in the county beside us). I have no experience with the courthouse being haunted - I worked there for two summers and spent a big chunk of my life there because my mom and my best friend's mom worked there, and I never "saw" anything.
But, Lake Shawnee...freaks me out. The first time I drove by it, I had no idea what it was. I'd never heard of it or been there. All I could see was an old abandoned ferris wheel (maybe a hundred yards from me?) and I just got this overwhelming feeling that I was not in a safe place (actually, my exact thought was "This place is haunted - speed the eff up" - it was around one in the morning and I was alone, haha).
A year or so later, some channel did a show about it supposedly being haunted, and I had no idea where they were talking about until they showed that damned ferris wheel. I freaked out. You can see daylight pictures of the park HERE (and if you read some of the comments, ignore the ones about people hearing carillion bells - my alma mater is just a few miles from this place and has a 48-bell carillion, so, duh, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to hear them on a clear night, ha!).
I think one reason this place (and state in general) is so riddled with ghost stories (and perhaps ghosts themselves? ;) is its age. Maybe not so much its age, but the age of things that are still here. It's very common for public buildings still in use here to date back to some point in the 1800s. Many homes still in use were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s (my parents home, for example, is over a hundred years old).
And, of course, the graveyards. My friends and I use to frequent a forgotten one here in my town when we were kids - high on top of a mountain and with death dates in the 1800s. Never experienced anything scary there, though - it was always daylight :) My dad's family's cemetary (which is actually made up of a couple of old families local to where he grew up - not just his) is also very old; there's a grave marker there for a Confederate soldier.
And on a semi-related note (simply because you mentioned moths, haha), we get some absolutely GIGANTIC ones in this county - I'm talking, wings that span out past your ears big. I haven't seen any that huge in a while (not outside at night as much as when I was a kid growing up here), but I did run into what I think was a Luna moth a couple of weeks ago which isn't all that rare or too huge, but pretty :) I can't figure out how to paste the picture in this email, but HERE is a link to it.
I have two friends that live in West Virginia, so I asked them if weird things ever happen where they live. Caina said not really, but she kind of wishes they would! Alicia, however, had a lot to say about it.
Here's what Alicia said:
So many. Most revolve around ghosts, from stories related to small-town, local family stuff (certain houses, roads, old forgotten grave yards, etc.) to bigger ones, like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA) which decided to profit off that whole "Ghost Hunters" show from Sci-Fi Channel. (Well, the new owners were already renovating and opening TALA to the public for tours, etc. before the show came along, but, still. .. Hell, I don't know why I sound bitter about it. I'd probably try to profit off it, too, haha.) I think any place that has an old abandoned mental health hospital or prison or school will have those kinds of stories.
The old West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville is supposedly ridiculously haunted - it has a reputation for having been a very cruel and unusual punishment kind of place, so...
As far as closer to my neck of the woods is concerned, two of my favorites are my county's courthouse (where Sid Hatfield was killed) and the old Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (in the county beside us). I have no experience with the courthouse being haunted - I worked there for two summers and spent a big chunk of my life there because my mom and my best friend's mom worked there, and I never "saw" anything.
But, Lake Shawnee...freaks me out. The first time I drove by it, I had no idea what it was. I'd never heard of it or been there. All I could see was an old abandoned ferris wheel (maybe a hundred yards from me?) and I just got this overwhelming feeling that I was not in a safe place (actually, my exact thought was "This place is haunted - speed the eff up" - it was around one in the morning and I was alone, haha).
A year or so later, some channel did a show about it supposedly being haunted, and I had no idea where they were talking about until they showed that damned ferris wheel. I freaked out. You can see daylight pictures of the park HERE (and if you read some of the comments, ignore the ones about people hearing carillion bells - my alma mater is just a few miles from this place and has a 48-bell carillion, so, duh, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to hear them on a clear night, ha!).
I think one reason this place (and state in general) is so riddled with ghost stories (and perhaps ghosts themselves? ;) is its age. Maybe not so much its age, but the age of things that are still here. It's very common for public buildings still in use here to date back to some point in the 1800s. Many homes still in use were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s (my parents home, for example, is over a hundred years old).
And, of course, the graveyards. My friends and I use to frequent a forgotten one here in my town when we were kids - high on top of a mountain and with death dates in the 1800s. Never experienced anything scary there, though - it was always daylight :) My dad's family's cemetary (which is actually made up of a couple of old families local to where he grew up - not just his) is also very old; there's a grave marker there for a Confederate soldier.
And on a semi-related note (simply because you mentioned moths, haha), we get some absolutely GIGANTIC ones in this county - I'm talking, wings that span out past your ears big. I haven't seen any that huge in a while (not outside at night as much as when I was a kid growing up here), but I did run into what I think was a Luna moth a couple of weeks ago which isn't all that rare or too huge, but pretty :) I can't figure out how to paste the picture in this email, but HERE is a link to it.
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