Olympic Torch Bearers-almost 100% right! Congratulations to Jenny Bowen!

I am sufficiently recovered from my Halloween hangover to resume normal activities....but this year it was just too much Halloween. I am glad that is over and I am not yet ready to face the holiday madness during this brief reprieve.

As I 'came to' this morning I saw that American Jenny Bowen the Executive Director of the Half the Sky Foundation (dedicated to the children in China's orphanages)will be carrying the Olympic torch for 200 meters in Beijing at the start of the Olympic Games this summer. It is not certain, yet, whether the children will be allowed to run with her, but stay tuned. Jenny has proven that NOTHING is impossible.

What could be better than Jenny running? The composition of the rest of the runners, that's what.

Joining Jenny are fellow expats: Marcos Torres of the Philippines, Werner Ebel of Germany, Meena Barot of India, Yoshitoshi Mizuya of Japan, Luis Hong-Sanchez of Colombia, Yury Ilyakhin of Russia and British-Venezuelan Deirdre Smyth.

The eight submitted essay about why they loved China and then the international public went to work and voted for their favorite. American Jenny Bowen recieved the most votes.

While the selection does foster the sense of international community and the Olympic spirit, there is one glaring omission in the runners-where are the black people-African or otherwise?

One has to wonder at such an obvious omission. Maybe there aren't many/any African expats living in China, or maybe they didn't garner enough votes. Or maybe the Chinese didn't believe that they could represent 'the real China' to the rest of the world.

Whatever the reason, I wish that all people could be represented. The global 'we' got 90% right....maybe next time we can reach 100%.

Have a great weekend. Don't forget to send those PJ's to San Diego!
With Respect,
Deb

What Columbus can teach us about updating our thinking.

On Monday, people in 33 of our 50 United States celebrated Columbus Day. Of course, this immediately begs the question "what happened to the other 17 states?" Do they know something we don't? Or is it purely a bureaucratic oversight?

Not knowing the real answer, I started to look into Christopher Columbus's story. I had grown up singing "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, thinking that Columbus had, in fact, discovered American.

As it turns out, Columbus 'discovered' land that was inhabited by hundreds of thousands of native people that had arrived in what is now the Americas, around 800 BCE via the Bering Strait. Not only that, but Columbus made four trips to the New World,was arrested in his own colony and sent back to Spain in disgrace.

His fourth and final trip brought him within 9 miles of his goal of reaching the Pacific Ocean to get to China and India, but his stubbornness and arrogance caused him to turn around. He didn't believe the native people knew an overland route to the Pacific.

Columbus was greedy and an incredibly bad leader-his own men and the indigenous people couldn't stand him. He died broke and forgotten in 1506.

Wow! Who knew? I had always held Columbus in the highest esteem-a hero even. But faced with additional information, I had to revise my position. Columbus, far from being a hero was a failure and by all accounts a miserable guy to be around. Not only did he not find a trade route to the "Indies", and fail to find the amount of gold he promised Ferdinand and Isabella, he was imprisoned in his own colony and was an all around jerk!

Of course, he was a brilliant sailor and navigator and his contribution to our world is enormous, but at the very least Columbus was a complex dichotomy. Maybe even a bit of an enigma.

With this new information, my bias about Columbus and his endeavors-which up until now were positive-have shifted. I can not just accept the information I was taught as a kid. I must face the fact that there is more to Columbus than meets the eye.

Hmmmm, this sounds familiar doesn't it. We develop biases based on data that may or may not be accurate and we own them. Ok, we are human. The question is what do we do when faced with additional and/or conflicting information. Do we rigidly hold onto your old beliefs or do you modify based on the new information?

I am suggesting that we teach our children to evaluate their biases and beliefs as new information comes their way. When it comes to the biases that can lead to bullying, rigidity is not something we want to promote.

So, if an when my daughter comes home humming a tune about Columbus, I will tell her the entire story-the good and the bad-and let her make her own judgement about Columbus.

With Respect,
Deb

PS: Max got out within hours of my triumphant announcement that I had fooled him. Back to the drawing board.

CBS Radio Does It Again!

From bad to worse!

Some people just don't get it-or are so interested in making money that they don't care if they profit by abusing others.



CBS joins the rarefied crowd of those that 'don't get it'. As difficult as it is to believe, they replaced the controversial Don Imus with an even more (is it even possible) controversial racist, sexist and ethnocentric 'shock jock'.

Yep! They did it again when they announced that Craig Carton who's history includes, Operation Rat a Rat/La Cucha Gotcha-a 'game' to turn in undocumented immigrants, 'outing' politicians THOUGHT to be gay and mocking Asians by mimicking accents and traditions.

To be fair, Carton wasn't always a jerk. He has done sports formatted programs across the country and has successfully increased ratings in many of the markets he broadcast in. And like Imus, he has generously supported children's charities. CBS is pairing him with ex-football player Boomer Esiason-who one can only hope will be the voice of reason.

CBS must think that-despite the Imus flap that there is a market for sexist, racist and other offensive programming. It is up to us to convince them that we don't agree. This is the time to step up to the plate and vote with your pocketbook. Don't listen to Carton's show, don't support the advertisers that support the show. Make your feelings about this type of programming known in the only way that CBS will respond to. We need to hit them in the pocketbook.

If you are serious about raising great kids, the example you set by fighting bias, racism etc will be the best thing that you do. They will know that you don't just talk about changing things-you do something. That is more powerful than anything else you can do.

With respect
Deb

A day at the beach-off topic!

I am fortunate to live in a beautiful area of the United States, surrounded by beautiful ocean beaches and calm bays. It is an area that is frequented by the 'rich and famous' (who don't drop by for a bar-b-que, in case you are wondering). In the summer, our mellow community is not so mellow. The beaches are crowded,parking impossible, the stores raise their prices for the 'city' people, there is a lot of traffic and tables at restaurants are hard to come by. Tempers are short-I guess when you are paying $300,000 to rent a beach house for a month, you have high expectations. The locals take it in stride, counting down the days until Labor Day and we get our communities back.

The summer visitors, on the other hand, are trying to squeeze in the last bit of fun before they head back to work and school. When the weather is magnificent, the pursuit of fun is even more frenetic.

We were fortunate to go to the beach twice this weekend-once on Saturday:


And again on Monday:


So, I was relaxed and happy coming into this week, hoping to get lots of work done and get my daughter ready for school...

With respect
Deb