Summer Solstice 2012...

... lots been churning, burning, inside myself over the past weeks and months - half a dozen 'works-in-progress' posts sitting in the draft queue...

and none of it is ready to be put out into the world yet...

so, I shall communicate what I can...

AND wish you all a happy, happy solstice - may the sun bring us all sanity, peace and joy as we celebrate the longest day and move into summer here in the northern hemisphere...

  

and for my children moving into the dark of winter in the antipodes, I say: "I love you and I miss you, as does the boy..."

 

Namaste

Bearing Witness...

Boy and I marched yesterday, in Seattle, to honour the May Day General Strike action...

Interesting experience - a reality check about the state of the world really, giving me lots to think about...

We marched to bear witness to what is going on in these times...

To bear witness, and, by our presence, to send a message to the powers-that-be that we know what is going on, and it's not OK...

"If we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand Utopian future.  The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think Human beings should live - in defiance of all that is bad around us - is in and of itself a marvellous victory." 

~ Howard Zinn

 

We went with our school teacher house-mate and another family...

We were a little late to the event, joining the march half way through...

We weren't expecting it to be the big deal it turned out to be...

I was impressed by, and grateful to, the young people who saw us (not that far behind Black Block - which we had no idea would be there), advising us to take a detour when things got 'exciting', so that the children would not be caught up in the fracas and the tear gas, pepper spray...

Some cars parked along the route were spray painted with protest symbols and had their tyres slashed...

I felt empathy for the owners of those cars who would come back to find this damage; 

The police were positioned to PROTECT BUILDINGS/CORPORATIONS not citizens...

I didn't feel any sympathy for the owners of the buildings that were damaged - though I was concerned for bystanders...

When a country, state and city (USA/Washington/Seattle) decides to use military force, surveillance and unmanned drones against its own citizenry, does it really think that the people won't feel they have to meet force/intimidation with force/intimidation, to both fight back and to retake their freedom?

Quite a challenge to explain all this to the boy and his peers...
 

Scary parts?

Talking to strangers and wondering whether or not they were infiltrators...

Noticing all the video and still cameras taking photos...

Sure there were news crews doing their thing and private individuals taking photos of cool signs and their group participants...

But who were all those other unidentified people, walking around click, click, clicking away without asking the people they were photographing if it was OK?

How the world saw what went on in the US yesterday:

Biggest May Day Protests in Nation's History

And for us here in the US - we are not alone:

May Day Protests Span The Globe

A Woman's Work...

... is never done, whether she's a single mother or part of a two-parent family, whether she works full time or part-time, or stays at home with her children...

 

 

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pyjamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn around garden...

 

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog...

 

Walking in the door, he found an even bigger mess...

 

A lamp had been knocked over, the throw rug was against one wall...

 

In the front room the TV was on loudly with the cartoon channel, the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing...

 

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door...

 

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife.  He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened...

 

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door.  As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor.   Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls...

 

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel... 

 

She looked up at him, smiled and asked how his day went...

 

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

 

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world do I do all day?"...
 

''Yes," was his incredulous reply..
 

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it.."

~ found on Facebook today

 

 

 

 

Dedicated to misogynists - especially middle-aged, patriarchal, chauvinistic, conservative, Christian, white males in American politics - who are currently waging war on the women and girls of this country...

 

What is wrong with you all?

 

Weren't you born of woman?

 

Were all of your mothers horrible?

 

Is your womb envy so overwhelming?

 

Why choose to be with a woman

and have children by her

if you don't love, respect and appreciate her?

 

Why would you do anything that perpetuates attitudes that will hurt your daughters?

 

 

 

 

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda...

 

 

Working to shake off a severe case of the "coulda, woulda, shoulda saids" over representing myself in this custody/relocation trial (argument finished yesterday - judge to issue written ruling eventually)...

 

I coulda said this... 

 

I shoulda rebutted that...

 

If there had been more time, I woulda highlighted that...

Breathe and let it go... let it go... let it go...

 

Did the best I could with what I had in the circumstances... 

 

What will be, will be... 

 

AND...

 

What if the judge gives custody of the boy to his father???

 

 

 

Last Call, Last Chance...

Last morning in court... make or break time...

Ex and his attorney and witnesses have taken up most of the time so far with their long-windedness and refusal to answer questions to the point, so I have only this morning to make my pitch as to why I should keep custody of the boy and why we should be allowed to move back to Australia... 

The challenge is to rebut all the crap that's been put on the table, put forward my own rationale without exposing myself to harmful cross-examination and without it all degenerating into a meaningless, context-less, confusing scramble of words that peeters out into nothingness because time has run out...

Judge will then take it all away, read the evidence/exhibits and come back some indeterminate time later with a written decision...

I can do this...

Gender Wars...

 

Interesting yesterday, listening to ex's domestic violence treatment supervisor,  criticise earlier treatment providers for holding ex fully accountable, belittling my experience of ex's abuse and the resulting fear and need for a Protection Order, and attempting to diminish the seriousness of ex's past actions and the risk of further violence... 

 

Male judge, male opposing attorney, male opposing witnesses...

 

And I have all female witnesses...

 

What does that say about life and the battle between the genders and the male attitudes to women and children?

 

 

 

 

King Solomon's Choice...

 

Up at 5am, out the door by 6.45, child in tow...

 

Long day in court...

 

Representing myself in this relocation trial which has morphed into a custody battle...

 

Learning on the fly how to ask witnesses questions and to cross-examine with a specific goal in mind... 

 

No real idea how I'm doing vis a vis influencing the judge... 

 

Think I am making some headway undoing some damage ex's attorney has tried to do and forcing his witnesses to back-track, admit mistakes... 

 

Back to the salt mines for more tomorrow afternoon...

 

Setting the intention that the universe fills my coffers with moolah overnight, so I can get to court and back - gas money and ferry fare home!   No idea how that's going to happen AND it will!!! lol...

 

Namaste - sweet dreams all...

Oh - and so grateful for loving friends - especially CHRIS S today... boy and I are blessed...

 

 

 

 

Data Collection...

It really is time we took the word "mistake" out of the language...

It makes people - children - WRONG, DEFECTIVE...

Every action each of us undertakes is, at the core, merely data collection - this is what happens if I do this, that is what happens if I do that...

AND, just imagine, what if...

???

I personally don't believe there is a state of being "wrong"... 

Nothing in nature is "wrong"...

The invention of wrong and right is a function of the human ego, needing to find a place in duality for a sense of security and a function of the need to exert power and control over others/life...

It creates or feeds into the "either/or" paradigm...

I think "and/also" is more dynamic, wholistic...

Buying into things being "mistakes" or "wrong" narrows our world...

And for many people - given the negative connotations of making "mistakes" and the fear that punishment will follow being "wrong" - it shuts them down...

Beasts Of Burden...

This has been doing the rounds...

More counting for nothing, or very little...

On a personal note...

I have four children, three from my first marriage and one from my second...

My daughters in my first family were 6.5 and 4.5 years old when their brother was born...

A few weeks before his birth, we were sitting in our lounge, with their paternal grandmother, looking through family photo albums, telling stories from the children's lives...

My mother-in-law opened her mouth and said:

"I hope it's a boy this time.   I like boy babies better than girls"...

I was gob-smacked...

WTF - here was a woman, telling her girl grandchildren in no uncertain terms, that they were lesser beings than boys and she really did not love them...

And then there was the time in 1990, when my father turned the responsibility/blame for his abuse of me back onto me.   When I asked him why he had done what he had done when I was a baby and then again when I was older, he told me that I had brought it all on myself because I "had always been a difficult child", in contrast to my younger sister who had always been quiet and compliant.   And when I asked him why he had not confronted my uncle about his abuse of me, he replied: "because he was my brother"... And I remember the stunned inner child (we all carry) inside, shouting silently: "BUT I WAS YOUR DAUGHTER!".   Years later, it clicked - if he had confronted his brother on his abuse of me, he would then have had to admit and own his own actions, and he could never do that...

And then there was my first husband, who did the same thing as my father had done - transferred the responsibility for his abuse of our second daughter onto her.   After we divorced, I challenged him about his behaviour.   He rationalised his  abuse of her by saying that from the moment she had been born, her cry had grated on him.   He went on to say (having just completed some psychology papers at university) that, according to family dynamics theory, she had come into the family and taken on the role of 'scapegoat' and he was just caught in and responding to that energetic/pattern of relationship...

Bloody hell...

It's Official...

... we're now living in serfdom here in the US, and, with the president refusing to veto the liberty and due process-stealing provisions of the NDAA Bill, in a fascist police state...

According to the latest census results, 1 out of every 2 Americans is living in poverty...

"Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too 'rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

"The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years..."

~ Half of All Americans Now Live in Poverty

The Oppression Of Children...

Via my friend Conny Jensen:
 

"..they cannot survive without you. It is a question of life and death!.. Instead of making them more alert, more aware, more alive, more reflective, instead of making them more mirror-like, pure, you make them full of ideas...layers and layers of dust.  And then it becomes impossible for them to see that which is.  They start seeing that which is not and they stop seeing that which is."


This is bondage. But everybody is living in bondage, because everybody who brought you up wanted to have power over you, to enjoy the mastery over you.

 

And children are the most helpless people in the world, the most exploited class.

 

It is not the proletariat who are the most exploited class, it is not women who are the most exploited class.  It is the children who are the most exploited class -- and so helpless. 

 

The proletariat can revolt -- they have revolted in Russia, in China and in other communist countries. The women all over the world are making efforts to revolt, but it is impossible to imagine how children will revolt.

They are so helplessly dependent on their parents, they cannot think of any revolt. And unless revolution happens in them all other revolutions are going to be superficial.  The basic conditioning, the basic imprisonment is created in childhood when the child is so helpless that he has to accept whatsoever conditions you put upon him just to survive." 

~Osho

 

 

Wow... extra WOW as I consider which of the two temporary housing options I should take up - have to decide THIS MORNING...

 

One keeps the boy more in his already fragile comfort zone, the other opens new doors for us both...

 

I am veering towards the second...

What Am I Teaching My Child?

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

 

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.

If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

~ Dorothy Law Nolte 

"If we are to teach real peace in this world,
and if we are to carry on a real war against war,
we shall have to begin with the children."

~ Gandhi

LYRICS

You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well, their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they fix, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

And you, of the tender years can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth, they seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well, their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they fix,the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

Of Dogs, Cows, Stars & Question Marks...

I tried to explain this to someone today, in a discussion on education and why we don't adequately fund something so important to the health of individuals, our communities, our societies and the planet ...

This country (and the world, more or less) is run by a group of people who have shown us exactly what are their priorities... 

And they are not interested in children as the unique human beings it's our jobs to nurture into their fullest potential so that all of society can benefit from what they bring to the community...

Rather, these people see children as commodities, or components, that make up what is in effect a sophisticated inventory system of moving parts, required to keep the machine operating to the specifications determined by that small group...

If these people were really committed to our children as sacred aspects of the Life Force (as all living beings are), society's focus and spending would be entirely different... 

Our first spending priority would be to make sure that everyone has what they need to maximise their potential - physical, intellectual, psychological, spiritual etc... 

But we know that's not the case... 

After all, society seems to spend more money keeping its cars and video equipment running than it does keeping its children safe, well, fed and housed - we prize media and mobility more than we do other human beings...

And we also prove that in our willingness to put the pursuit and control of oil before our care about how many people we have to hurt/kill and how much money we have to spend to get that control...

Our kids are, in reality, units of economic production; we will spend a lot on those who will give us a good ROI (return on investment) and we'll spend the bare minimum on those who will not... 

It's the law of the capitalist market place...

The Boston Consulting Group's MATRIX says it all really.

Here you have "star" products, "cash cows", "question marks" and "dogs".

See the explanation of this principle and these terms below

And this is how this world looks at entire cultures, races, countries, systems, services, individuals...

Until we deal with this reality - denounce it and decide not to operate under that model any more - nothing will change...

And it's daunting to think how we might change it... 

Most people will say either that we really don't, or we don't want to, treat individuals that way...

I say we do; whenever did the oligarchs stop to think (let alone care) about how their decisions, actions, manipulations affected another living being (other than those in their own circles)?

Do they ever show signs that they think of their fellow human beings as equal, unique individuals who are born to the same rights and privileges as they themselves have?

I say they don't...

But when one thinks of how one is going to do the utmost to nurture to full potential the 7 billion people we have on the planet, solving this issue becomes seemingly overwhelming...

Which gives the oligarchs the permission and the capacity to keep raping us, our children and the planet...

* The BCG matrix, also called the BCG model, relates to marketing.

It's a portfolio planning model developed by Bruce Henderson of the Boston Consulting Group in the early 1970's.

It's used in product life cycle theory and to prioritize which products within company product mix get more funding and attention.

The BCG model is based on classification of products (and implicitly also company business units) into four categories based on combinations of market growth and market share relative to the largest competitor.

When should I use the BCG matrix model? 

Each product has its product life cycle, and each stage in product's life-cycle represents a different profile of risk and return. In general, a company should maintain a balanced portfolio of products. Having a balanced product portfolio includes both high-growth products as well as low-growth products.

A high-growth product is for example a new one that we are trying to get to some market. It takes some effort and resources to market it, to build distribution channels, and to build sales infrastructure, but it is a product that is expected to bring the gold in the future. An example of this product would be an iPod.

A low-growth product is, for example, an established product known by the market. Characteristics of this product do not change much, customers know what they are getting, and the price does not change much either. This product has only limited budget for marketing. The is the milking cow that brings in the constant flow of cash. An example of this product would be a regular Colgate toothpaste.

But the question is, how do we exactly find out what phase our product is in, and how do we classify what we sell? Furthermore, we also ask, where does each of our products fit into our product mix? Should we promote one product more than the other one? The BCG matrix can help with this.

The BCG matrix reaches further behind product mix. Knowing what we are selling helps managers to make decisions about what priorities to assign to not only products but also company departments and business units.   

What is the BCG matrix and how does the BCG model work? 
Placing products in the BCG matrix results in 4 categories in a portfolio of a company: 

BCG STARS (high growth, high market share)

- Stars are defined by having high market share in a growing market.
- Stars are the leaders in the business but still need a lot of support for promotion a placement.
- If market share is kept, Stars are likely to grow into cash cows. 

BCG QUESTION MARKS (high growth, low market share)

- These products are in growing markets but have low market share.
- Question marks are essentially new products where buyers have yet to discover them.
- The marketing strategy is to get markets to adopt these products.
- Question marks have high demands and low returns due to low market share.
- These products need to increase their market share quickly or they become dogs.
- The best way to handle Question marks is to either invest heavily in them to gain market share or to sell them. 

BCG CASH COWS (low growth, high market share)

- Cash cows are in a position of high market share in a mature market.
- If competitive advantage has been achieved, cash cows have high profit margins and generate a lot of cash flow.
- Because of the low growth, promotion and placement investments are low.
- Investments into supporting infrastructure can improve efficiency and increase cash flow more.
- Cash cows are the products that businesses strive for. 

BCG DOGS (low growth, low market share)

- Dogs are in low growth markets and have low market share.
- Dogs should be avoided and minimized.
- Expensive turn-around plans usually do not help.

 

So - what are you and your family,
your community, your school,
your neighbourhood, your state,
your country
to the oligarchs?

are you a STAR?

are you a CASH COW?

are you a QUESTION MARK?

or

are you a DOG?