Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

>    I watched a video clip of Prime News with Erica Hill on CNN online yesterday. The piece was about a reality TV show called “Intervention” that aired a story tracking an alcoholic woman as she, among other things, takes several long, last swigs of vodka from a bottle then gets into her car, drunk, and drives off. Ms. Hill interviewed both the director of the show and a professor of ethics from Syracuse University. The issue under discussion was whether or not the shows director had an obligation to “step in” and prevent the obviously intoxicated woman from driving, thereby putting herself and others at risk.
    You think?
    Well, their respective positions were as follows. The director said that it was a reality show and, therefore, not their duty or obligation to intervene with behavior that someone would otherwise have taken part in anyway without the presence of the cameras and witnesses. The professor said that while there was no legal obligation to do so, there may have been an ethical/moral obligation for the director to intervene.
    You think?
    All agreed upon conclusion (including Ms. Hill) that the reality show has a good and valuable purpose which is to show the less-than-glamorous side of addictive behavior and the benefits of intervention. So, you could say CNN ended the story on a positive, upbeat note, highlighting the overall benefit of “Intervention.” After all, it’s a show that conveys a positive message.
    You think?
    I mean is anyone thinking?
    While I don’t question the ability to use TV to educate and elevate our thinking minds, what exactly were these people thinking? Are we so far afield from true reality that justifying and rationalizing the promotion of destructive behavior and the profiteering that can be had from it is a good use of technology and the media?
    I used to practice law, and I know doctors who practice psychiatry, and both lawyers and doctors have a legal and ethical duty to report knowledge of a pending crime or action where an individual’s behavior will place them or others in harms way.
    Now, I’m not holding a reality TV director to the same standard as a lawyer or a doctor. At least not the same legal standard. But ethically and morally, don’t we all, as fellow members of humankind, have an obligation to assist one another in mitigating harm when we see it?  Is it enough to say that “it was going to happen anyway so why should I get involved?”  Doesn’t that
abdicate personal responsibility in every situation?  If I see someone being
beaten, should I not attempt to intervene in some way to assist the
victim…whether it’s a call to the police or more immediate intervention? Can
I walk away with peace of mind saying “If I hadn’t been there they would
have been beaten anyway.”
          You think?
   I think not.
          It is not enough to invent the technology, it’s incumbent
upon us to use it wisely.

    There is evidence all over our planet that intelligent life
existed thousands of years ago in highly developed civilizations about which we
have little or no understanding. What they were able to accomplish, to this day,
defies our comprehension. Yet they are gone. Disappeared without apparent
cause.
    There’s a theory among spiritualists and others that at one time, the
“lost continent of Atlantis” was as technologically advanced
as we are today. But, through misuse of the power they had harnessed they
destroyed themselves. The belief is that we have reached that point again and
are getting, what is essentially, another chance to do it right.
    I think that doing it right involves using what we have
harnessed for the highest good of all concerned. I also think that standing by
and watching someone put their life and the lives of other in mortal danger
without making any effort to intervene before the fact is not the
highest good for all concerned.
    We are capable of so much more.
    You think?
   

>    In Crandon, Wisconsin a young man, recently out of high school…a boy, really…holding the position of Deputy Police Officer, went on a rampage shooting, killing 6 children ranging in age from 14-18. He ran following the murders and, hours later, was killed by local police when negotiations for his surrender collapsed.
    Is it a gun control issue or a background check issue? I think not.
    We live in a world where violence, in all it’s ugly forms, has become so commonplace and so widely available for viewing, that it’s really an issue of “When are we going to take responsibility for the society we have allowed to grow up around us?”
    I say “allowed” because without our consent, condoning and economic support as consumers of the news, movies, video games, television shows, magazines, books and whatever other means by which violence is marketed, it would not have the standing and be the lucrative income generator it is. But more than that, we would not have become hardened, slowly over time, to the adverse effects of so much exposure to maiming, killing, and destruction.
    We live in a society (and a world) where a famous sports figure can murder his wife in a fit of jealously and, with abandon, continue to seek the spotlight…and receive it. A world where the head of state of a terrorist nation is granted the status of honored guest and invited to speak to our youth at an accredited and acclaimed institution of higher learning. A society where “reality tv” is comprised of death-defying acts of survival and “winners” are the ones left standing after destroying the competition without regard to ethics or consideration for compassion.
    Are we shocked when a teenager then murders 6 of his peers in a display of unbridled rage? Perhaps still somewhat shocked..just not surprised.
    Our lack of surprise should be the real shock. It should shock us out of the self-imposed dream state we live in and shock us into an awareness of how we have institutionalized violence. It should make us ponder the question “If what we give our thoughts, attention and energy to creates our reality, is it a surprise that violence, in the form of terrorism, has found it’s way to us?”  Whether it’s the terror of one boy murdering 6 of his friends or 19 terrorists murdering 3000 of our citizens…it all begs the question, “What is my personal responsibility for the perpetuation of violence?”
    We are not powerless nor are we helpless in this matter. We have choices, every day, around that which we chose to read, watch, speak, and give our attention. Remedies start small and local but eventually  spread large and wide.
    What can you do?
    Remove the word “hate” from speech. Do not watch or purchase violent video games. Do not watch violent television shows. Do not read about violent acts of crime. Do not allow anger to drive your behavior in ways small and large. Do not watch or patronize violent sports. Do not purchase violent toys for children. Do not seek revenge. Look for the ways violence crops up in your immediate life and make efforts to eliminate it.
    Slow down. When we are burdened with more than we can do it’s a common reaction to express the stress we experience with anger. Model a more “civilized” and “natural” lifestyle for the children…for they are watching and learning from us.
    In this highly technological and rapidly paced world in which we find ourselves, we spend too much time interfacing with technology and too little time interfacing with Nature. Go for a walk, daily. Spend more time outdoors. Breath deeply. Hug and be hugged. It’s not some cute, New Age philosophy. We are human, social beings and need the warmth and interaction of other human, social beings. Without it, we lose our way.
    So, perhaps the important questions to come out of the murders in Crandon, Wisconsin are “How isolated did the murderer feel? How much time was spent cultivating his values. How often did he have the love and affection of those close to him? How much time did he spend watching television/video games/internet violence? Were his parents involved and knowledgeable about who he was and what he was struggling with, feeling and doing.”
    Sooner or later, each one of us is going to have to come to grips with the world we have co-created and responsibility for the one we continue to co-create. In order to change that which we do not like and find unacceptable, we are going to have to change ourselves and how we do the things we do in order to co-crate new and more acceptable ways of co-existing.
    Until we take responsibility, and make those changes, there will be more O. J. Simpsons, more Crandons, and more Ahmadinejads.
    That’s how it works.
   
   

>    A 10-year-old Chinese girl’s feet and hands were bound and she was put into a lake in China for three hours and forced to swim “like a dolphin” to stay afloat. Oh, I’m sorry, she wasn’t forced. Her father, a Chinese swimming coach, said she insisted he do that to help her “train for her goal of swimming the English Channel.” He didn’t risk her life at all, the father continued, because “he swam behind her” the entire time.
Right. Aren’t all 10-year-olds driven by a compulsion for competition by risking their safety and/or their life to break a world’s record?
    It was only 4 years ago that our daughter was 10. I remember it vividly and death defying acts (other then an occasional ride on the “Wolf” at Great Adventure) were not a high priority for she and her friends. So what’s up?
    While the news story from China appalled many worldwide, it struck a way too familiar note to me. We live in an affluent, suburban, New Jersey community and these kids are driven to not only excel in academics, but also to take every possible extracurricular activity they can fit into their day so that they can “compete” for that treasured admission’s spot at the future University of their choice. They are driven to each of these activities by their parents who, I believe, are literally the driving force behind all this drive to succeed.
    Left to their own devices, kids don’t think about college at ages 8, 9, or 10. And when they do, it’s because they’re hearing it at home. Sure, there’s the occasional Mozart or Michaelangelo or Tara Lapinski…who are born with an internal passion to pursue a particular talent or skill. But they’re the exception not the norm. The children of today (and it’s not confined to the U.S. but endemic in all technologically advanced countries) are being stressed to the breaking point to compete, achieve and excel. Their sense of worth is not being derived from Who They Are but rather from What They Do and How Successfully They Can Drown Out The Competition.
    Like the swimming coach father in China who does not see the connection between his own passion and how he has driven his daughter to pursue it, I have personal experience with this one. 
    Parents who think their unfulfilled dreams and internal fears don’t influence their children…listen up.
    Both my parents were children during the Depression when fear of economic survival was the order of the day. Later in life, and shortly after my birth, my father came home from work one day and told my mother that he had quit his well-paying job because he was working 7 days a week, day and night, and he didn’t want to spend his life doing that. She responded with anxiety asking him, “How are we going to survive? We have two little children (I had an older sister). How could you do this?”   
    My father rallied and went on in life to become a successful, self-made millionaire, having never gone beyond high school for financial reasons. All I ever heard him say was that if he could have he would have been a lawyer. It was he life-long regret. At age 9, I wrote an essay in school that started out “When I grow up of course I want to be a wife and mother, but first I want to be a lawyer.” Age 9!
    So here’s the shocker. I grew up to become a lawyer and have an irrational fear of lack even though I’m an artist at heart and always had more than I needed  to survive. Yes, I had totally internalized both his regret and her fear.
    Now, let’s take parents who are less subtle than mine. Let’s take the one’s who are actively pushing their children to compete and succeed and grow up way too fast…or the the ones who are throwing them in lakes with hands and feet tied to sharpen their survival skills. What effect are they having on their children. And to what end?
    There’s and old saying, “Boys will be boys.”  How about “Kids will be kids.” If you’ve got the occasional Mozart, by all means allow that genius to pursue his or her passion. But if you’ve got your pretty standard issue kid, let her grow up at the rate Nature intended, get out of her way, and let her bloom and flower in her own time, not yours.
    And if you’ve always wanted to swim the English Channel or go to Harvard…you go for it.

>    The candid photo accidentally taken by tourists of a Moroccan woman walking down a roadside carrying a child on her back who may be Madeleine McCann, the 3-year-old British toddler missing from a Portugal vacation resort since May is heart breaking for several reasons.
    The obvious reason is that if this is the McCann child her trauma, and that of her parents seeing her as she is depicted with strangers,  must be overwhelmingly painful. Having a daughter of my own, I don’t even want to imagine being in such a terrible situation.
    The less obvious reason is that if one thinks about how easily the child in this photo could be Madeleine, or any other unsuspecting child, then one must confront the responsibility we all have for the illegal baby and child slave labor trades worldwide. In a 2006 article by Kristen Lingowitz, she reports on child slave labor as follows:
       “..throughout Asia and South and Central America it has become very
prevalent. Children as young as four years old are being held captive
and forced to do work that the average American would find
inconceivable. Worldwide, there is an estimated 250 million children
between the ages of five and fourteen working in developing countries
around the globe.”
    In addition, the World Health Organization reports that in Asia alone, an estimated 20-40 million children toil in debt servitude.
    Madeleine McCann is not the typical case although, if alive and not found, her fate may be typical. And while she was not born into poverty in a third-world country, or abandoned somewhere to an unknown fate, we can perhaps be the wiser as a result of her tragic experience.
    Madeleine McCann’s parents were vacationing at a Portugal resort when they went to enjoy a dinner with friends elsewhere in the complex, leaving their three small children alone in a hotel room. It was under those circumstances that Madeleine disappeared. While I am not judging the parents for their action, or blaming them for their daughter’s plight, the obvious question arises: Is dinner out with friends worth the risk of placing a child or children at risk for harm?
    Everyone must answer that question for themselves and take responsibility for their decision. I know that when our daughter, now 14, was between the ages of 2 and 5, we never even went out to dinner leaving her with a sitter. We simply didn’t go out. And as she got older, unless she was in summer camp (and with only one exception) we have never vacationed without her.
    This is not to say our approach was correct or the only way to deal with raising a child while finding necessary and independent adult time. But it is to say that once one makes the decision to bring a life into this world, there begins a stage wherein there’s little room for ego gratification and self-indulgence…and even less room for a margin of error in regard to the child’s safety and wellbeing.
    When we were adopting our daughter, my husband (who had been  married previously and raised two sons) told me that “once we have a child, there will be no time for us.” I listened. But somewhere I thought he was saying there would be less time for us. I simply could not believe there would be no time.
    It’s 12 years later and he was, literally, correct. There is no time because raising a child is a full time job if you want to do it right…or even try to. Romantic dinners, adult only vacations and private time, while nice and perhaps even necessary, need to be re-prioritized to a lesser degree of importance where the safety and well being of the child is not compromised.
    My heart goes out to Madeleine McCann and her family. My heart goes out as well to every child suffering under the weight of neglect and abuse. We should all be pained as members of the human race for those millions of children worldwide that are the object of greed and cruelty.
    We can do something about it one child at a time by refocusing our priorities on what matters. What matters is our responsibility to the children and the possibilities for the future.
    What we know for sure is…the children are the future.

>    As we live through challenging times, and often turn to the lives of celebrities to distract us from more pressing matters, I’d like to clear up two misperceptions. 1) The lives of famous people are easier than ours, and 2) We are bound by the life circumstances we are now living.
    I think much of the fascination with the lives of the rich and famous is the illusion that they somehow have it better or easier and, therefore, don’t have to face the mundane matters or difficult decisions we do. That’s simply not true. No one, regardless of fame, wealth or social status gets to circumvent the “why” of why we’re here.
    We’re here to grow through our weaknesses and expand upon our strengths. The fact is everyone has them. Of course, mine are different than yours. However, each of us will have countless opportunities, by way of life choices and life experiences, to overcome our weaknesses and apply our strengths for the highest good.    
    What we do in idealizing the rich or famous is to elevate them to an artificial status that simply doesn’t exist, while negating the purposefulness inherent in our own lives.
    The other reason I think we tend to overindulge in such distraction is that we also misperceive our own life situations as somehow stagnant or, at least, too difficult to change. We get into life patterns that do not suit our true nature and yet, feel trapped by the very circumstances we’ve created through choice.
    Changing our circumstances is possible but requires a certain amount of honesty with oneself.
    First, it requires that we acknowledge responsibility for the choices we have made that resulted in the life situations in which we find ourselves. Secondly, it requires that in those situations where we seem not to have made a choice, but instead find ourselves in less-than-desireable conditions, we adjust how we perceive those conditions. For how we see things makes all the difference in both what we see as well as how we experience it. I am often reminded of the book by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, in which he writes about the importance of bringing meaning in one’s experiences (as in the suffering and degrading conditions of concentration camp internment) and how such meaning can literally make the difference between life and death.
    There is no real benefit to wasting precious time lost in someone else’s life…whether it’s Britney Spears, O. J. Simpson, or your best friend.  Each of us is gifted a finite amount of time in these bodies to experience the world in our own unique way and, by so doing, bring added meaning to existence.
    Today, take the time and energy you might otherwise spend on someone else’s life script and apply it to your own. Take responsibility for the decisions you have made, realize you can see it all differently any time you choose, and them make today’s decisions fully conscious of their importance.
    In case you’ve forgotten, you are directing, editing and starring in this production.
   

>    On a day when headlines read as usual “Oprah Asks Justin About Britany” and “Al Qaeda Wants Jihad Against Musharraf” what a welcome relief to read “Yousiff’s Surgery Went Well, Doctor Said” referring, of course, to the delicate operation (the first of many to be performed) on the 5-year-old boy from Iraq who was dragged from his home by masked men and brutally doused with gasoline then set on fire. 
    What a testimony to the kindness of strangers and the possibilities that exist when we use our will and our technology for the highest good of all concerned.  Many people, worldwide, were so moved by the tragedy that they contributed money, transportation and medical skills in order to provide this child with surgery and the possibility of a normal life.
    Yousiff’s story is the kind of news that elevates our thoughts and opens our hearts. It’s stories such as his that provide the opportunity for we, as members of humankind to be the best we can be. And while his story is one of millions, it sets the example of what we are capable of when we use our power and our talent for good.
    So let’s talk about the millions that don’t make the headlines. Those who remain faceless and nameless but who, nonetheless, daily suffer the anguish, pain and tragedies inflicted upon the defenseless and the disempowered. Whether it’s Darfur, Somalia, Columbia, or anywhere else in the world (including the United States), we are daily offered opportunities to step up, reach out and make a difference. And while I by no means belittle contributing money or time (for at that stage its about all one can do), I’d like to suggest more proactive and preventative measures.
    If we can focus our attention on how interconnected we all are, how each of our actions impacts others both near and far, and how responsible we each are for the thoughts we have and the actions we take in furtherance of those thoughts, I believe it’s possible to change the world we now live in to such a degree that we actually cease co-creating the pain and suffering that surround us.
    As far back as I can remember, I always liked to say, “Thoughts are things.” I just instinctively knew that to be true. Now, as humankind expands what we know about consciousness, we are beginning to prove that we actually effect reality with our thoughts. Perhaps soon we will prove that we not only effect it, we co-create it.
    So, if in fact, our thoughts create the world in which we live, then its vital that we see ourselves, all of humankind, as One Unified Being with many parts, or aspects, of Itself. It’s vital that we understand that when we hurt one part or aspect of that One Unified Being, the pain is felt throughout and reactions occur accordingly. We must begin to think of how we can elevate the human condition, not perpetuate it’s suffering and tragedies by focusing our attention and our deeds on the highest good for all concerned.
    I know all of the people who contributed money and time to make Yousiff’s journey and surgery possible are invaluable. But so are each one of us who focus our thoughts on his healing…and on the healing of pain and suffering everywhere.
    Remember, “Thoughts are things.” Build the foundation for the world you want, brick by brick…thought by thought…deed by deed…and so it will be.
    Blessings and healing to you, Yousiff.

Technorati Profile>    O.J. Simpson is back in the news. I think we owe him a debt of gratitude for giving us the opportunity to get right what we failed to get right the last time he preoccupied the nation.
    Let me start with an historical occurrence. Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph was a Judean sage at the time of the 1st century. It is said that he and 24,000 of his students all perished in one day from a plague. But in  Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) it is said that they perished because of how they spoke to one another. How can this be? Can it be that simply being disrespectful to another is cause for death?
    In physics, it has been proved that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think this may help us understand how the Kabbalistic perspective may have merit.
    Life is designed to be an endless series of choices…from the most mundane to the most significant. We make the choices we make based upon where our consciousness is at any given moment. Different choices create or manifest different outcomes. If I have the chance to forgive someone or to seek revenge upon them I will experience, quite literally, the consequences of whichever choice I make. The higher and more developed your consciousness, the more challenging and nuanced the choice, the more immediate and proportionate the reaction.
    Now it is said that Rabbi Akiba was one of the most spiritually enlightened beings during a time when a multitude of spiritual beings lived. The students that were drawn to him were likewise enlightened. At their level of consciousness, simply being unkind or insensitive in speech to another was cause for death. While such an outcome may be hard to comprehend, it’s also worth noting that at that time, murder and publicly embarrassing another through speech were the only two behaviors punishable by death. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
    Let’s return to O.J.  He’s just a human being making life choices for which he will ultimately experience the appropriate consequences. It’s a distraction and an abdication of our own personal responsibilities to give any time to what is going on in his life. Our choice is to follow all the media hoopla or not. It’s that simple.
    When we choose to read story after story, watch newscast after newscast, listen to talk show after talk show on what’s happening now with O.J., we are not only guaranteed to get more of the same from the media, we are guaranteeing our own consequence as a result of our own choice. I believe that consequence to be trading off personal and spiritual growth for the diversion of judging another and feeding our ego the illusion that somehow we are better than he is.
    We are not better than O.J. Simpson. We simply have different choices to make than he has. If we choose poorly at the levels we are at, our progress will be not better than his. It’s all a matter of degree.
    Jesus, who lived at the time of Rabbi Akiba, said you can set the banquet table but you cannot make a person eat from it. It is likewise true that the media can daily feed us up a banquet of meaningless stories that have no real impact on our lives and we can eat, or not eat, from that table. The choice is ours.
    This morning, CNN’s homepage (and many others) has O.J.’s photo in the lead box as the lead story. I have a blog to write, a 14-year-old to raise, a marriage to maintain, construction workers at my home, a lot of errands, and a book to finish writing.
    CNN and O.J. don’t even factor in. But I thank them both for giving me this opportunity to choose.
   
   

>      As I frequently mention, I don’t watch much television. However, I used to be in the habit of surfing the Sunday morning news shows between 9 A.M. and noon to get a summary of what happened during the week. I stopped doing that about a year ago when it was just too boring (and painful!) to listen to the same things over and over each week and on each station. Nothing really changed. It was the war in Iraq…pro and con on why we were there and how to get out…the economy…and the 2008 Presidential election.
    Yesterday, I decided to sit down, take a look and listen, and see what was going on. Surprise! Nothing has changed. Literally. All the shows were covering the same three stories! I had been elsewhere for a year and missed nothing. (Which tells me a lot about 1) the media and 2) how we squander precious time tracking nothing).
    Then, near the end of “This Week” with George Stephanopolous on ABC, there was a surprising two-minute segment with Alan Alda.
    It seems Mr. Alda had a near death experience that refocused his priorities on what really matters, which is the present. Literally, the instance of “now.” He made the point that 2000 years ago the Roman Emperor and prolific writer Marcus Aurelius had written of the importance of living in the moment. Tomorrow is a dream, yesterday a memory. All we really have, and where our personal power and joy resides, is in the moment. In being aware and present enough to fully experience and fully engage others…each and every second as those seconds are occurring.
    This is not “news.” From Marcus Aurelius 2000 years ago to the contemporary philosopher Eckert Toll, untold numbers of individuals, philosophers and spiritualists have been trying to wake us up to the fact that living in the “now” is all there is.
    What is news is that “This Week” decided to put on a two-minute piece about it.  It presented a stunning contrast and vital lesson.
    Time is the commodity we most prize. I spent the last year not watching the morning news and missed nothing. If you spent the last year watching what I did not (52 weeks at 3 hours per week = 156 hours) you spent 3.9 weeks of your year..not to mention your life…staring at a picture that essentially never changed. You stared at nothing for almost 4 weeks of your life! If you do the math, and that’s all the television you ever watched (I doubt it) and lived, say, 40 more years, you’d spend 156 weeks of your life staring at something that never changes.
    Clearly, I have carried this to the extreme to make my point.
    The news we get is a diversion from reality. Reality is NOW. More importantly, reality is your own personal experience, not someone else’s experience or their interpretation of it. Spending precious life moments on meaningless babble by others who know nothing of your life or your life’s unique path is sorrowful.
    What a waste of the gift of existence you’ve been given.
    Alan Alda, in the fraction of time he was given, made the point that an exchange between he and one of his grandchildren that suddenly births something neither had anticipated is all that really matters. The rest is folly.
    I was both saddened and heartened by the two-minute story on Mr. Alda. Saddened that it was only two minutes when the messages is 2000 years (or more!) old and still not learned by humankind. But heartened because of something my 14-year-old daughter likes to say.
    Whenever she gets something she wants, but does not get all of that thing that she wants, she lifts her spirits by saying, “Well, a little is better than none at all.”
    Two minutes on national television for the single most important message of our time is not nearly enough.
    But it’s better than none at all.
   

>    Luciano Pavarotti, the gifted tenor, died yesterday. Seven years ago today my Father died. I am thinking about how we honor those who impact our lives when they are no longer with us in body. It may seem a little strange, but I learned how to do that from a dog I once loved. His name was Link.
    Link had a sense of humor (really!) and a seemingly boundless zest for life. He liked to do silly things that made me laugh out loud. When he was about 4 years old I was going through a tough time in my life. We went out for a walk one day and, lost in my own sadness, I turned my attention from watching him to feeling sorry for myself. In that instant, he bounded across the street, was hit by a speeding car and died in my lap on the way to the vet. I was devastated.
    In order to bring meaning to it all, I realized that Link had been an example of living each moment full of joy and heightened energy. Unable to teach me that in life, I learned it from him in death.
    The way to honor is by taking the best of what someone has brought to the world and live it.
    My Father was a strong-willed, self-made entrepreneur who was usually only available for family in a crisis. But he had a heart “as big as Texas” and a charitable nature that was remarkable. No matter how he came to know about a story of suffering or lack, he set about to try and do something to alleviate it. All the dictionaries in our home had the word “can’t” crossed out. My Father said there was no such word as “can’t” if you really wanted to do something. When he passed away, I spoke about his charitable nature as a way for his spirit to live on.
    I didn’t know Luciano Pavarotti…other than what I’ve read about him. But it seems to me he found the creative gift that made him the unique individual he was and embraced it, and life, with passion. It’s a wonderful teaching.
    All of the things that happen to us in our lives have no independent meaning other than what we attribute to them.
    I could have spent my life regretting that day I turned my eyes from watching Link and remained bitter for the times my Father was unavailable. Instead, I carry a permanent smile in my heart for Link’s joyful zest for life and try and emulate my Father’s will to uplift and prevail no matter what.
    As for Pavarotti, he will always be for me a guiding light for embracing my unique creative gift. I am a writer.
    Like all writers periodically do, I had recently been questioning and doubting my talent and whether or not it’s all “worth it.”  My gratitude to Pavarotti for reminding me how to honor a life and bring meaning to it. I have once again embraced my love of writing.
    Today, this blog was written solely because of the meaning Luciano Pavarotti’s life has brought to mine.

>    Last week, on my way to visit my 91 year-old mother in Florida, I purchased a special edition of U.S. News magazine at the airport that is dedicated to advice for high school students on applying to college. I certainly support being prepared in advance for application to institutions of higher learning. However, I think that somewhere along the way we scrambled our priorities and, perhaps, have actually lost our way.
    I am the mother of a 14 year-old daughter who starts high school this morning…so I’m in the trenches on this one. We had to juggle her school schedule with after school lessons in piano and voice as well as math tutoring. Jazz dance lessons are out this semester because of a time conflict. The theater program, of which she is a student, will require that both she and her parents sign a contract stating that if she is in the school play, all other commitments are secondary to rehearsals (piano, voice, tutoring, doctor and dentist appointments included, just to name a few) and that missing one rehearsal automatically removes her from the play. As the performance approaches, rehearsals can last until 11 P.M. on school nights. Team sports have a similar contract so its one or the other, not both, for obvious reasons.
    Our daughter’s schedule is not nearly as “booked” as most of her friends. On the academic front, some of them took a prep course and practice SAT’s (college entrance exams) in 7th grade! Early application and early admissions are now the norm…so their really not “early” anymore, are they?
    As I said, I’m all for advance planning when it comes to college. I went to college and law school and am an advocate for higher education. But when did we stop allowing kids to be kids? When did age appropriate learning and fun become subsumed to the race for who is the smartest…with the most activities on their application…and who gets there first?
    Our next door neighbor has three children under the age of 12. I notice she is tired and stressed a lot. Yesterday we were talking about school starting and she was near an emotional break point telling me about all the required things she had to do for each child. Even her youngest about to enter kindergarten was required to have (among a list of other things) ten glue sticks. Really, 10? Almost as ridiculous as our daughter being required to purchase a $140 calculator in 8th grade. (As an aside, while my neighbor and I were having this conversation, her 9 year-old daughter was yelling that she hadn’t yet gotten the cell phone she’s due).
    The technology has accelerated our lives in so many ways we’ve lost count of them and simply try to keep up…or catch up. The pace and the pressure is hard enough for the adults. As for the children, I suspect the damage is accruing over time…like too many sunburns at the beach when you’re 15 that later turn out to be skin cancer…we are stressing out the children, perhaps beyond repair, and the children are the future.
    I hope our daughter continues to develop her academic mind and creative interests. I know we’ll support her in whatever ways are needed to continue to help her grow to becoming a contributing member of society. But I have to tell you that in the end, I won’t care if it’s Harvard, The Restaurant School, an art Institute or any state college. In the end, I’ll care if she is joyful, compassionate, respectful of all living things and able to appreciate the miracles of life that occur all around her each and every day.
    As of this writing, there is no course selection or after school activity being offered in “Life Appreciation and Right Thinking.” Until there is, my husband and I are teaching that one.