The National Rifle Association should be taken out back of the woodshed and given a good thrashing for their latest stunt. Robocalls to Newtown CT residents calling for opposition to gun control legislation? REALLY? Newtown, of all places? Their insensitivity astounds me. Since I’m speechless, here’s a link to an article from the March 25, 2013 edition of The Hill. Understandably, Connecticut senators are condemning the calls and calling on the NRA to stop this campaign immediately.
A Victory for Clean Water
At least for now. My local paper reported this morning that the New York State Assembly has voted in a bill placing a 2-year moratorium on hydrofracking the Utica and Marcellus Shale formations to allow officials enough time to study impacts of the practice on health and the environment. Hooray! The Senate has yet to approve a similar bill, but supporters are hopeful.
I live on the outskirts of Finger Lakes wine country. My husband and I love taking day trips to the various wineries, both for their products and the heart-stopping scenery. What would become of this beautiful region if hydrofracking were allowed? Imagine the potential harm to the water supply that nourishes the grapes and surrounding farmlands when fracking chemicals seep into the groundwater. Consider, too, the effect on the local economy as vineyards and tourist dollars dry up. Vintners and local farmers and artists who sell their products in vineyard gift shops lose valuable income. Are oil and natural gas profits worth the risks to this fragile region? I think not. Cheers to the state government for thinking of the downside.
The issue of clean water is bigger than we are. Sacrificing local economies and our health and that of our children and grandchildren for the purpose of feeding our appetite for oil and natural gas in the short term doesn’t teach us to respect the Earth’s gifts and conserve for the future. It merely reinforces the slash and burn attitude of modern man.
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Tagged clean water, DesertGirl Media, Elizabeth Maginnis, Elizabeth Maginnis - freelance writer, environmentalism, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes economy, Finger Lakes wine country, Finger Lakes wineries, hydrofracking moratorium, linkedin, NYS Assembly moratorium hydrofracking, NYS hydrofracking moratorium, water pollution, water safety
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Therapy Dog Brings Joy to Special Needs Kids
This morning my local newspaper ran a story about therapy dogs, specifically one therapy dog who is making a difference at a local elementary school where many of the students are special needs kids who also suffer from social and emotional challenges. It’s not hard to imagine how hard these kids struggle to get through the day and how hard they try to acquire the skills they’ll need to live a productive adult life.
The school recently acquired the services of a therapy dog who has already made a difference in the kids’ lives. Just being around the dog calms them. He listens when they need someone to talk to. He sits patiently when they need to hug him or snuggle up with him on the floor. He’s there whenever they need a pal to hang with.
For most of us, it’s not the challenges we face but the lack of emotional support that drags us down from day to day. I know I feel so much better when I can talk things over with my husband or hug my cats and dogs during a difficult time. It’s wonderful that these lucky special needs children now have someone to turn to when the going gets a little rough.
Conscious Capitalism
Two things wake me up on a workday morning: a good cup of coffee and MSNBC’s Morning Joe news program. Today was no exception. I had never heard the term “conscious capitalism” before this morning’s show. The hosts interviewed Whole Foods Market’s co-CEO John Mackey, who was there to promote a book he co-authored: Conscious Capitalism. The segment piqued my interest.
What is conscious capitalism? Simply put, it means that corporations must have a higher purpose than just making money. Corporations that have embraced conscious capitalism pursue more transcendent goals like responsibility to the community and the environment and employee and customer satisfaction. Conscious capitalism includes developing relationships with vendors that follow sustainable practices and severing ties with those that do not. A good example is that of a food chain that refuses to transact business with a company that sells seafood sourced from over fished waterways. Or how about banks that lend collateral-free funds to poor women so they can start their own businesses and achieve financial independence?
I will think of these companies the next time I hear a news report about record corporate profits and obscene bonus payouts. To paraphrase a line from the 1980s movie Wall Street: How many yachts can a CEO water ski behind? Must it always have to be about the money?
Have We Forgotten our Relationship with Nature?
Traditional societies have long harmonized their lives with the patterns and processes of Nature, building a spiritual relationship with the Earth that acknowledges the interconnectedness of all things. Nothing exists in a vacuum, after all.
We in the commercialized world have lost touch with this relationship. Does it feel right? Don’t we try to fill that disconnect with our inner selves with material goods that, in the end, give nothing back? With a nod to the 80s movie Wall Street, how many yachts can we water ski behind?
Look at what happened to the Plains during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Greed that arose out of inflated wheat prices caused excess cultivation, destroying the soil and threatening to turn the nation’s bread basket into another Sahara Desert. The Earth was exhausted by the get rich quick fever. I’m certainly no expert in agriculture, but I do wonder whether the crisis would have been so severe if fewer people had jumped on the wheat bandwagon and not cultivated en masse and so heavily.
I sincerely hope that we can learn to slow down and reconnect with Nature. I’d like to believe that we’ll feel more fulfilled and do less harm to the Earth if we respect her and her gifts and structure our lives around a more measured consumption of her resources.
Thanksgiving
My life is full of blessings, and not of the material kind. Mine are of the kind that truly matter: love, friendship, family (two- and four-legged members), a roof over my head, the sun in the sky … These are worth more to me than a Lexus in the driveway ever could.
My darling husband, the love of my life, is the angel on my shoulder. Who knows how my life would have unfolded if not for him? He makes me want to be a better person, and I am eternally grateful to him for that, in this life and the next. Don’t know what I’d do without him.
My kids are my greatest accomplishment in this life. My pride in them is unwavering, as is my amusement at their foibles so lovingly endured by their wonderful spouses. Sometimes, when the light catches their profiles just so, or I see their heads locked in conversation, I catch a glimpse of their two- and three-year-old selves once more.
My three adorable granddaughters do their best to keep me active, even on my worst days. Their smiles and hugs chase the aches away as soon as they run through the door. May I live long enough to dance at each of their weddings. They are treasures.
I cannot neglect to mention my extended Irish family of sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, aunts, cousins, with love in their hearts and arms wide open to welcome this Scottish girl. I had the privilege of meeting the New York/Long Island branch of the family this summer. The afterglow lasted for weeks.
And friends. My dear, dear friends there to share a laugh and a hug. What would I do without them? My days would be empty indeed if they were no longer at the other end of an e-mail or a phone call. My four-legged friends never fail to give me a cuddle when I need it most. They brighten my life just by being in it.
I’m glad, so glad, for my life and hope to do my best to show my loved ones just how important they are to me, not just tomorrow but every day.
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Tagged DesertGirl Media, Elizabeth Maginnis, Elizabeth Maginnis - freelance writer, family, gratitude, linkedin, Thanksgiving
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Walkability
I’ve been reading the chapter on walkable communities in HRH The Prince of Wales’ book Harmony. In it, he talks about the town of Poundbury in SW England, which planners designed in a spiral pattern of individual mixed-use mini villages containing schools, shops, and private homes within walking distance of each other. Automobiles are almost unnecessary. In fact, the thoroughfares were constructed more as wide walking paths than roadways. Cars are allowed but don’t rule the streets.
Personally, I’d love to be able to get to the places I need to get to by foot, if for nothing else than the exercise and social contact with my neighbors. I’ve noticed more people in my neighborhood walking their dogs on the street and in the park. My own dogs, usually so suspicious of everyone they encounter on our walks, have fallen in love with a woman who lives a few doors down from me. How great is that? I didn’t think they liked anybody! Walking brings people together. While walking through New York City’s Upper West Side this past July, my husband and I witnessed two people walking their dogs toward each other from opposite directions. It was clear from the few snippets of conversation that I overheard that the dogs and people had never met before. The dogs, in a way that only dogs can, introduced themselves and became instant friends. Their people struck up a conversation, and who knows? At that moment a human friendship may have been born. You can’t do that while driving in your car to the grocery store.
I Remember
the beautiful fall morning as I rode the bus to work.
the ordinariness of the day.
the disbelief and horror at the news. How could that be? Planes crashing into the World Trade Center? the Pentagon? One hijacked plane still airborne? Where was it going?
the numbness and sense of otherworld-ness at the sight of those mighty towers falling.
the need to be home, with my family, safe and sound.
the horror, always the horror.
the horror still.
Please Don’t Hurt the Elephants
I’ve been researching elephant tourism for a client for the past few months. What an eye opening experience! I never knew how brutally elephants are treated in Southeast Asia. Mothers and babies are routinely separated so their owners can sell the babies to purveyors of elephant-back tourism, i.e., individuals who profit from forcing their elephants to spend long, hot days on the streets giving rides (which severely injure an elephant’s spine) or performing tricks for money, or those who turn their farms into so-called sanctuaries that promote elephant-back safaris, elephant painting, and elephant performances. The methods that elephant owners employ to train their animals are harsh and inhumane. I won’t go into detail.
Thankfully, though, some ethical elephant lovers have stepped up to draw attention to these practices by opening sanctuaries that do exactly what unethical elephant owners do not. They offer human/elephant contact in a wild environment in which the elephants are allowed plenty of space to roam free and interact with each other naturally.
One such place, Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary, was established in Thailand by Katherine Conner in memory of Boon Lott, a baby elephant that Katherine nursed back to health from calcium deficiency and other weaknesses attributed to his premature birth. She went so far as to launch a successful international campaign to keep mother and baby together when Boon Lott’s owner decided to sell him to an elephant tourism company. The little guy had touched her heart that deeply. Katherine’s sanctuary promotes survival and growth of the elephant species through application of her three goals: protection, expansion, and education. She also provides financial support to local elephant owners to prevent them from selling their animals to the tourist industry.
The world needs more people willing to fight for ethical elephant tourism free from back-breaking trekking and performance activities that only serve to demean these gentle giants.
Posted in My Blog
Tagged Boon Lott, Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary, DesertGirl Media, elephant painting, elephant performances, elephant rides, elephant safaris, elephant tourism, elephant treks, elephants, Elizabeth Maginnis, Elizabeth Maginnis - freelance writer, ethical elephant tourism, Katherine Connor, linkedin, Southeast Asia
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Summer’s Waning …
During the middle of last week, I noticed a subtle shift in the weather. Not much, mind you, but it felt as though someone had flipped a switch. There was something in the air … The lowering angle of the sun keeps it from warming my pool with as much intensity as it did even two weeks ago. That water is chilly! Nighttime temperatures flirt with the 50s. One doesn’t have to look at the calendar to sense that fall is just around the corner. Where did this summer go? Wasn’t it just last week that we celebrated the Fourth of July or the joy in renewing connections with family and friends in Manhattan and on Long Island? What a great trip that was! Was it really already a month ago?
It won’t be long before we close the pool for another season and settle indoors to watch football while the outside world prepares for winter. Indications are that we won’t escape harsh conditions this time around. Mother Nature spoiled us last year. But, fall (especially fall!) in Western New York State is simply spectacular, and I look forward to its vibrant colors, pumpkin harvests, and the scent of apple cider and fresh-from-the-oven donuts beckoning me to the local farm market, all interwoven with the family birthdays and holidays that come with this time of year.
It’s wonderful!
