The Word Love

A poem written by my son today. Oh, children are indeed insightful, wiser than the adults and so fantastic.


The word Love means many things
but some are behind the stings
of the word Love
because none are so above.

Love has a many feeling,
happy, sad, angry, and mad.
Filled from floor to ceiling
yet is not always fed.

But if you give it long enough,
for the word is full of stuff,
you'll always be cured
by the magical word called Love.

R. Mullinnix, 4/6/16, 6:55 a.m.

The Crab Pot

We sat in the aluminum fishing boat, the sun beating down on our bare shoulders, the sound of the water lapping around the oars as the boat rocked gently from side to side. My brown hair pulled up into a ponytail allowed wisps to tickle my cheeks and neck, as the wind skirted across the lake. Mt. Hood stood tall and bright in the background, beetles knickered at each other in the distance and the smell of fresh pine trees permeated the air. My ex-husband rowed the boat with ease, as the muscles of his arms flexed with each stroke and his construction man hands gripped the handles of the oars. This sounds like the beginning of a romance novel. Alas, no.

“Let me row,” I said. It was over a decade since we’d become a couple and we had spent many days in this boat on the water. We began in Southern Oregon on the wild Rogue River, with him rowing and guiding, while I would smile, relax and read a good book, waiting for the next prime fishing spot. In 1991, we moved to Gresham, Oregon, just East of Portland and set out discovering the glorious fishing aspects of the Clackamas River. On this particular day we were camping in our favorite spot on Timothy Lake, located in the mountains, just southwest of Mt. Hood.

The husband raised an eyebrow. “Really,” I said, “I want to row. This is perfect!” It wasn’t the first time I would have rowed the boat. He had shown me how to navigate it on the river and since I was the product of a family of girls who could shoot, hunt and fish, I was proud to learn the ropes of trailering the boat and water navigation. The large lake was calm, the boat traffic light, with only a few other fisherman around us. This would be a piece of cake compared to navigating a river’s current.

He shrugged his tanned shoulders, smiling slightly – I thought, proud that the wife could row his boat. He muttered, “Okay,” and we began to gingerly switch places. He moved to the back of the boat, eased into the cushioned boat seat, opened a beer and I re-centered myself in the mid-boat, aloft the seat box. I gripped the oars, allowing my hand to slide down against the thick rope wrapped around the wood.

The husband said something, gave me some direction, to which I offered a snarky wife remark and rolled my eyes. He knew this was not my first rodeo. I set off, moving the boat through the water gently, feeling the oars, centering my weight, and testing the strength of the waters resistance. I played with navigation, reversing the direction of the boat, spinning us around – raising my eyebrow back at him. I could move the boat anywhere I wanted, as easy as I could navigate an automobile backwards or parallel park – I had never been directionally challenged.

I don’t know at what point I decided I needed to show off. Perhaps it was the heat of the day frying the frontal lobe of my brain where logic resides. I had started moving the boat through the water at a nice clip. Feeling the muscles in my shoulders strain, my forearms bulge (as much as an un-muscular young gal’s forearm can bulge) and my hands tremble as they gripped the oars. I remember wanting to see just how fast I could get this boat moving on my own. The husband begrudgingly gave a positive nod.

As a runner - er, jogger – er, runner – often the perfect powerful song will slide through my playlist and my spirit soars. My legs react and I feel as if I’ve surely hit that 6 minute mile. When in reality, I probably look like Dane Cook’s comedic rendition of a pedestrian fake running across the crosswalk in front of your car (look it up, it’s hilarious). I feel like the hare, my mind is the hare, but physically, I’m still the tortoise.

I imagine on that day this sort of scenario is probably what was actually happening with the boat. I had propelled us fast enough to create more of a breeze against our skin, to push my ponytail around my neck, but to the bystanders, we probably looked as if the anchor was down and a mad woman was at the helm.

I looked across the water, smiling, feeling strong and able. The oars were powerful, glided through the water with little splash – it was so damn easy. I wanted to make the husband proud. I looked around and spied a few other boats fairly close to us. I thought they were watching. I was in the moment.

BAM! Suddenly I couldn’t see anything but the blueness of the sky, not a cloud in what felt like tunnel vision. The sides of the boat no longer extended alongside me, but upwards towards the blue. I could no longer see the husband, as he was now blocked by the seat box, where I was no longer sitting. And my legs were extended straight up into the air.

At first humiliation hit me but I instantly squelched it with a big gut bomb of laughter. I opened my mouth and let out a big guffaw, shoved my head and shoulders up with my elbows and looked squarely at the husband. He had one arm bent across his mid section, while the other elbow rested on that forearm, his hand clutching the sides of his mouth, while he shook his head side to side and chuckled. I looked around at the other boats, and realized what they saw.

One second there sat an insane rowing woman and suddenly, this rower caught a crab and flipped right over. The passenger was left staring calmly at an empty seat, flanked by two upright legs.

This vision sent me into fits of laughter and the sound pealed across the lake towards the shore. I returned to my prone position, staring at the sky, feeling quite stupid, and a little mortified. I realized I couldn’t hide there forever so I swung my legs over and push myself upright in the boat. All the while, the husband sat there quietly with a sly smirk on his face.

There are only a few human traits that I really despise and arrogance is at the top of the list. I find it an ugly trait and regardless of how talented an individual is, their talent shines brighter when filtered through a humble demeanor. There is no doubt that I was overflowing with arrogance that day, without a shred of humbleness even searing my aura. Who knows, perhaps if I’d been successful, I may have become an annoying arrogant S.O.B. Thankfully, the great character checker in the sky knocked that chip right off my arse, and restored the rightful balance of humility to the universe.

The Market Price of Words

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize winner for the book The Color Purple, said, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” As I peruse the news stories about the new movie 50 Shades of Grey, a feeling of resentment and fury moves across my mental plane. And afterwards, I wonder what power I really have in making any difference at Hollywood’s movement to desensitize our nation by promoting sexual abuse as the new norm. I can already hear the laughter, cat calls and comments from the ultra liberals, who say it’s “art,” or just a harmless novel.

What power indeed. The power of the written word will be my sword. Just as Russell Wilson used his written word to cut through many a fan’s soul when he twittered, “Thanks for the early showing of the movie 50 Shades of Grey last night. Great Movie,” followed by, “Provocative/disturbing no doubt but it does not make me any less faithful.” Not only has Wilson’s “Why Not You” foundation created the “Pass the Peace” campaign to “bring awareness to domestic violence,” Wilson has woven the facts of his Christian faith throughout the fabric of his reputation and fame as one of the NFL’s leading quarterbacks. A supportive response to this movie flies in the face of everything Wilson has purported himself to stand for, and in the face of dissenters of Domestic Violence.

The responses to Wilson’s post were immediate, with anger on both sides of the issue. Those who support the great athlete’s right to watch whatever he wants and those who viewed his support of this movie as an affront to the faith he constantly tweets about online and discusses for the public’s viewing pleasure. Interestingly, not one person shouted about the hypocrisy between campaigning against domestic violence and supporting this movie. Unfortunately, the fact that he is a self-professed Christian was the issue, rather than the image of an American athlete, with glory, money, and power both on and off the field, verbalizing support for a movie that idolizes the same rough male power abuse of a female.

On October 2, 2014, seahawks.com released the news about Wilson’s campaign against domestic violence and quoted him, "As NFL players, we do not play a gentle game. Our hits, our anger, our aggressive behaviors need to be regulated and confined to the field. The fight is not just with fists. The fight is with minds, thoughts, mentality and perception.”

View me scratching my head here, trying to pull it all together. “The fight is with minds, thoughts, mentality and perception.” A movie and its’ themes infiltrate mind, lead the thoughts, sway the mentality and alter perceptions. 50 Shades of Grey is not condemning but glorifying sexually assaulting, raping, beating a woman just because a man can. This story promotes the idea that abuse is okay because she likes it.

So what’s the problem? Here’s an excerpt from the novel:

Just kidding. Not because I’m too frigid to enjoy a nice titillating story. I intended to include an excerpt; however, as I read through bits and pieces of this novel, which has surpassed 100 million copies sold, I felt like I needed to vomit. I felt the need to run away. The material caused internal fear and panic, as I read about the lead docile female character enduring what equated to being beaten and abused, for the pleasure of a man with tremendous power. As I read, I experienced a gut wrenching impact to me as a woman, as a human, and I found myself unable to understand how any woman could read this novel, support it by watching the movie and applaud or be amused.

Domestic Violence has been a hot topic in the news over the past year or so, due to multiple athletes beating their wives. The NFL’s administration has been subjected to scrutiny as the news broke that top NFL officials had ignored player’s abuse of their partners. The severity of the problem prompted Wilson to step up and challenge other high profile persona’s, such as Derek Jeter and Justin Timberlake, to meet his actions, donate money and fight against domestic violence.

According to Domestic Violence Statistics.org (DVS), every 9 seconds in the US, a woman is assaulted or beaten, and at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime (most often, the abuser is a member of her own family). Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women (more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined). DVS reports that up to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually, and everyday in the US, more than three women are murdered by their partners. In their research they found that 55 – 95 percent of women abused by a partner do not file a report. Women report that reducing this violence and assaults are a “top concern.” Finally, the report shows that boys, who witness domestic violence in their homes, are “twice as likely to abuse their own wives.”

Anne Munch, a former prosecuting attorney, has devoted her life’s work to advocating for victims and educating the country. She is an expert witness for several branches of the United States military and was involved in the development of their Sexual Prevention and Response program. Munch created a video presentation, discussing whom she’s labeled the “Unnamed Conspirator” involved in sexual assault cases. The general public.

Old perceptions and attitudes, myths about a woman’s behavior, such as what she’s wearing to whether she was walking down to the local pizza restaurant alone (good girls don’t walk alone), prevent jurors from finding offenders guilty, when the evidence and facts prove “beyond a shadow of a doubt” the defendant's guilt.

She tells a story about a young girl who was raped at work. Munch leads the listeners through all the facts – physical evidence, physician' report, the girl’s blood on the offender’s shirt – and the story of the girl’s life, which was turned upside down during the pretrial preparation time. The girl received death threats, leading to the arrest and conviction of two separate men, one a fanatical fan and the other, a “murder for hire.” The young woman moved to multiple states as she awaited the trial. Finally, as jury selection began, the young girl decides that she could not endure the effect this trial has on her life and withdraws her complaint – walks away. Munch explains the offender went free and proceeds to show his photo to the audience - on the front page of a national magazine. A star. A hero. She says the general public doesn’t want their idol to be convicted. We don’t want to believe that someone we like, we care for, we love, would be the perpetrator of such an awful act. So we blame the victim and excuse the offender.

We are the Unnamed Conspirator.

I posted about this subject in my Women’s Studies class, as we took on the topic of Domestic Violence last week. Jacque, a fellow student made an interesting comment. “When Russell Wilson was approached about supporting it, I noticed many people pointed out he shouldn’t support it for religious reasons. In the Bible men sold women, kept slaves, and exploited minorities. It seems 50 Shades would be similar to a story right out of the Bible, with slightly more explicit detail.” I have to agree with her, as reading an excerpt from the new and improved Message Bible, the revised wording reads like a XXX erotic thriller, rather than a parable about life.

Shawna, another fellow student, responded, “Even though the media shows disgust with violence against women, it’s supporting this film and how it’s sexy and romantic. I read the books, as best as I could. I try not to judge. It’s a horrific book series. I tried to get through it and I just couldn’t get over the cringing and the overwhelming sense of just how wrong it all was. Manipulative, creepy, and eventually rape. It’s not sexy or romantic. It is a piss poor example of a relationship, abusive, horrific, and the fact that it’s being represented as what young woman should be shooting for, scares me.”

One of my personal contacts posted on Facebook that six screens in their local theatre were showing 50 Shades of Grey on Valentine’s Day. The day our nation has delegated as the day to celebrate our partners, our lovers, our friends, with respect and hopefully some sex (Yes!). Sarcasm jumps in here – because apparently we can’t perform 364 days of the year, we need THIS one particular day. And yet, on Valentine’s Day 2015, movie screens across the nation devoted lover’s day to a story line that promotes and idolizes physical and sexual abuse; the torture of a good ole’ American girl. Do you think there will be a new doll for our daughters named Ana Grey?

Why should we give a damn what Russell Wilson publicly supports?

Why do public figures create foundations and campaigns? Why would celebrities challenge their peers for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Why would Wilson publicly challenge other public figures to donate to “Pass the Peace?” Why did Marshawn Lynch refuse to speak to the press?

Because, the world is listening.

These people live in the power seat. The influence of their spoken, written, published word is immense. A young boy, who is fatherless, living in an environment surrounded by violence – the very same children, whom these very athletes are directing and leading – the children watching from their hospital beds at Seattle Children’s – listen, watch, follow, act. Adolescents, pushing back against their parents with normal rebellion – listen, watch, follow, act. Young adults and even grown men, idolizing their hero – the power of the great cause us to listen, watch, follow, act.

Russell Wilson twittered this was a “great movie”, without any explanation of exactly what was great about it. He supported it because it was filmed in Seattle, the city he loves and the city that loves him. Wilson personally places himself in a position of leadership for the vulnerable and while he has been vocal with the fact he is not perfect, there are no shades of grey where domestic violence remains acceptable. This chink in the armor alters perceptions about domestic violence and may have wide spread damaging consequences to the ones who should be protected.

Palpitate Your Heart with "The Drop Box"

For two hours the audience remained silent, other than the sounds of women and men blowing noses and sniffling, accompanied by the whispering sound of a hand wiping a tear away from the cheek.

Movies are typically full of noise, as moviegoers riffle around in their popcorn boxes, slurp from the big cup or tear open candy packages. This sold out theater was as silent as the sold out theater at American Sniper.

Perhaps the silence was due to the subtitles, as the story unfolded in Seoul, Korea. Perhaps the audience, like me, didn’t dare turn away for a second, so as not to miss a moment of Pastor Lee Jong-Rak’s story.

The movie moves back and forth through the life of Pastor Lee and his wife, their two biological children and their adopted children. The audience meets each child, and is introduced to their unique disability. We become entranced with the story of how they came to be a Lee child, and the husband and wife team who lavish them with care, love - and human value.

We learn about the issue of baby abandonment and the general population’s history of ignoring the problem. And I think: They could be talking about America.

The Drop Box was built into the side of the church, which is also their home. It provides a safe place where mothers can leave their babies, and we hear the “ding dong” resonate through the house, when a baby is deposited. In the dark we watch the adults rush to action from their slumber, racing to the box, removing the beautiful infant, praying over him or her, beginning the process to provide them life. We witness this, amongst the splash of news reports from around the world - babies thrown away in the trash or abandoned alongside the streets.

We hear of the cultural rules against unwed births and the reasons that these abandonments occur. Our hearts ache for the mothers, most of them teenagers. Our hearts bleed for the fathers, the married parents, who have disabled children and cannot care for them, left with no option but to abandon them to an orphanage.

And I think: This is America’s not so distant past.

We watch them care for their 26-year-old son, who was born with severe deformities and spent 14 years in a hospital. We tear up as Mr. Lee talks about selling their home to pay their medical bills, living in the hospital corridors, in order to provide for their son.

We meet the beautiful toddler girl, left on their doorstep in the middle of a cold, freezing night, who surely would have frozen to death, had they not found her. We learn that she was the reason he created The Drop Box.

Pastor Lee’s box is not the first of it’s kind. The movie tells us about such a box created in two other European countries, one of which is Russia. We hear about the great controversy over these drop boxes. As we watch the miracle of saving a life unfold, we struggle to understand how anyone would rather these children be left to die elsewhere.

Pastor Lee’s biological son is unable to move and has a breathing tube in his throat. We watch them clean the hole, bathe their son, talk, touch his cheek, laugh and love him. This one child alone is an incredible journey of decades spent in complete devotion to one thing – the value of his existence.

The Lee’s do not spare one ounce of that same dedication towards any of these children, many of them abandoned due to extreme physical and health disabilities.

The director, Brian Ivey, from Los Angeles, originally set out to make himself a name at the Sundance Film Festival. His goal in making this movie was one for his own professional success. However, he shared during a post movie interview, that his life was forever changed within the six months he lived there. His focus for this movie switched within days of arriving. He originally thought the story was about the country’s conflict with one man saving children, and soon realized the story was about this family’s dedication to the lives of unwanted and unvalued children, abandoned on a doorstep. And in that story, he found his own soul.

I can’t narrow down one event in the movie that struck my tear ducts the most. Many of our tear production began during the special previews prior to the movie, calling attention to the crucial need for foster and adoptive parents in America. Perhaps the movie stirred me because I was a baby born to an unwed teenage mother and I know, firsthand, the pressure my mother endured to get rid of me through adoption.

One lone fact wound itself tightly through my heart. All of these children, given some sort of label, such as blind or deaf, unable to function – responded to their caregivers with smiles, eye movements, vocal sound and whatever limited physical movements they could create. They were alive, and inside their restrictive bodies, their minds were receiving the positive input and in return gave love in the only way they could.

The Lee’s message was heard loud and clear. Each human life is important – every life has worth. Every single one of these children is valuable. They are a gift from God and have a purpose for arriving on our planet, on the Lee’s doorstep, and in our midst, right here in Seattle.


www.thedropboxfilm.com

Mergers, Acquisitions and Takeovers - Who Knew This Was a Fascinating Subject

50 Shades of Oppression

This post is prompted by my fascinating Women's Studies class and this weeks topic of sexual violence against women - and the desensitization of our nation. Of course, 50 Shades of Grey, which released this past Valentine's Day, was included in the question prompt.

When my daughter was 5 years old, the fashion industry made a change in the clothing offered for young girls.

Suddenly the words “princess” or “juicy” were splashed across the ass of little girls everywhere. The waistband of pants took a turn south, barely riding above the pubic area. Shirts shortened, giving way to the bare midriff and schools implemented stronger dress code policies.

As a mother, I was horrified and angry that not only was the fashion industry introducing theses changes in clothing to barely older than toddler age girls, but that people were actually dressing their daughters “like a 20 year old.” (Bad Feminist, Careless Language of Sexual Violence, Page 128). A young child in provocative clothing.

I have watched the progression of our society's return to overt sexualizing our girls for 19 years. This is the part of feminism I don’t understand and probably in line with Prosecuting Attorney Anne Munche's Unnamed Conspirator theory. As a feminist, we are to explore and find power in our sexuality; yet, we allow society (men), the entertainment industry (men), to sway us into accepting what is obviously (we are so blind) chains and control, disrespect, of the female body, brain and worth - all in the name of this so called power. It is the lie of the unnamed conspirator. When talking about “Careless Language,” the meaning extends past our verbal use of sexually desensitizing words and into our daily actions. Of course, if we live in a society, where we choose to dress our young children and pre-pubescent adolescents in a way that encourages and begs for older boys and men to look at their asses, where we encourage and foster the idea within their own minds that their bodies and their person are there to find attention, then it is not so far a step to include a change in the words we use about sexuality, to degrade the overall respect of females as a human being of worth.

And since the movie was brought up in the prompt, the fact that the erotic novel (I'm not even sure "erotic" is strong enough word for this piece of work), 50 Shades, was made into a main stream major motion picture, to which 6 theater screens were devoted on Valentine’s Day – the day lovers are suppose to show love, hopefully respect for their partners (because apparently we can’t show that the other 364 days a year), and have sex together (yea!) – is a blatant indication that we have definitely allowed the horror of trafficking female bodies to be glossed over and become a mainstream acceptable idea.

The Truth about Super Bowl XLIX

It’s 2 a.m. and I should be sleeping. I wish I were. Yet, the fever that has plagued me for days has intensified, causing my sleepless mind to wander on over to the memory of the Seahawk’s Superbowl loss.

It has been five days since the game and the vision of the end zone scramble, players falling, the ball…. – still clear. I remember my eyes roving over the players, my mind screaming “where is the ball?!” and the announcer’s voice breaking through the fog.

“OH MY GOD, IT WAS INTERCEPTED!”

I have no doubt my stomach felt like most 12’s. Nausea. Heartache. I calmly whispered, “No.” Where our house had been a maniacal thunderstorm of cheers and “SEA”, “HAWKS”, the ruckus in the neighborhood, suddenly it was a silent as the theatre after “American Sniper.”

I followed my whisper with the recognition, “Wow, that Patriot’s player just made a name for himself. Good for him. Wow. Damn. That was a good play.”

In all the hoopla over “the worst call – ever,” people have lost sight of what truly happened. To say that I am a Seahawks Fan is to understate the love I have for this game and this team. I stood there, in my living room, wearing my unwashed Hawks flannels and Kearse Jersey. I saw Wilson’s face, followed by the camera’s close up of Pete Carroll. I knew Coach was manning up to face the team and understood what was set before him in the locker room and the return home. I too wondered, as the announcers verbalized the question – why?

So here’s the answer.

The Seahawks lost because Malcolm Butler did his job and played Football. Because the game is about what every other game of ball is about. One team attempts to move and one team attempts to prevent movement.

If we truly love this game, we have to see beyond which team we wanted to win, even as a Hawks fan, and envelop the beauty of Butler’s play. He saw what was going down and played that ball. He secured the Superbowl (can you feel the adrenaline?) for the Patriot’s. He outplayed the best quarterback of the NFL, he took Lockett out (pass interference or playing the ball?), he did the job and owned that football. He outplayed one of the top NFL teams, their defensive coaches, their head coach – who would have won that game – and nailed that trophy for The Patriots, securing a ring for himself.

I can’t give you statistics, quote numbers, run a play. I’m simply a lover of the game because of the rush it gives me watching the action on the field. I know who’s good and who ain’t so good. I understand how the game works but I couldn’t be a play-by-play announcer. I can only imagine that our coaching team knew Butler was a rookie, had watched him play and just as the Patriots lined their defense against Beast Mode, our offense may have thought the little throw across that line was an easy in, against the less experienced player. Just a thought.

Congratulations Malcolm Butler. Job well done, man.

And Mr. Carroll, don’t feel too bad. Because, the loss really was my fault.

Ten minutes into the game my daughter realized I didn’t have the flannels on. I was mistakenly wearing jeans. And the only other time I’ve missed the start of the game with the flannels, the Hawks lost.

I whipped on the flannels and squelched the thought, “Damn, I hope this isn’t a sign.”

The Sum of Our Relationships Today

Should we really wonder why relationships fall apart, when they are relegated to the amount of time we can fit into a little box?
Even with those who live in our very own homes.

What is the sum of your marriage today?




(Deadmau5 & Imogen Heap)

Hey babe, hows ya day been?
No, you first, oh what?
The delay's quite bad
Yeah, sorry
Where are you I cant really hear you?
A taxi, distracted
Anyway, you... you were saying
Wait, ah, now, they're waving me over
Can I call you back?
Yeah, everything's fine, why?
Am I? I don't know why,
I probably just need sleep.
It's been a busy week
Sorry I've got to go
Sorry...ok, bye.

This is just so unlike us,
Cut back to horizontalisms
If we could win just one small touch
Contact versus telemiscommunications

Plan foiled, sirens pass by, kids screaming,
The longest public announcement
Reached check-in, finally got through,
Running for a flight, shoes off,
You're calling voicemail
In-joke, group laughter, closing scenes,
In a meeting
Angel. Angel! Why didn't you tell me?
One second, someone needs directions
Can't you see I'm on the phone?!

This is just so Unlike us.
Cut back to horizontalisms
If we could win just one small touch.
Contact Versus Telemiscommunications.
So Unlike us (Unlike us).
Cut back to horizontalisms
If we could win just one small touch.
Contact Versus Telemiscommunications.

Did I tell you, I loved you, today?
Did I tell you, I loved you, today?


Read more: Deadmau5 - Telemiscommunications Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Journalism and the Internet: Assimilation is the Key

The Internet has impacted the news media and Journalism industry. Media companies scramble to adjust to the changing demands of society, newspaper companies shut down and consolidate print media, journalists end or broaden their careers, news is being produced at an on-demand rate, often without accuracy.

The reality is clear: The Internet is not a passing phase and in order for Journalism to survive, adjustments are required to assimilate this powerful medium.

In 59 B.C., Julius Ceaser ordered that the Roman Empire publish a daily report named “Acta Diurna” (daily acts). These reports were published by carving the information into metal or stone and placed where the public had access to read them. Throughout human history, the release of information, reporting of news, education of the masses, and the freedom and restriction of speech through various mediums, has been a focus of governments and society. The Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech were important enough to the founder of the United States of America that they embedded it into our Constitution, under the First Amendment.

Journalism is defined today by Merriam-Webster as the “collection, preparation, and distribution of news through media.” Media is described as “pamphlets, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, television, and books.” Originally the term was a reference to printed material; however, with the explosion of the Internet around the globe, the term was changed in the late 20th Century to include electronic forms of distribution. The Internet has brought with it positive and negative changes to the Journalism industry.

The speed in which an event can be reported is empowering to networks, and journalists. This electronic society has opened a door for reporting to every individual in the right place, with a camera or online access. First Amendment rights are being exercised to a degree humans have never experienced before. Freedom of the Press is not only extended to professional journalists and news media, but also to the citizens who are the readers. However, the empowering speed and immediate access are also a stumbling block. As the “need for speed” envelops the news media output, the ability for fact checking, accuracy, and ethics, can be easily ignored.

The evening of Monday, November 23, 2014, the country waited in anticipation for the State of Missouri to reveal the grand jury’s decision in whether to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown. The shooting had caused local riots when it occurred in August, 2014, as tensions between the civilians and police increased. The National Guard was sent in to the area to regulate and dissolve inflammatory behavior. On November 23, the local evening news was ready. As they awaited the news conference, NewsChannel 5, reported live on NBCNews.com. The reporter advised viewers they could “stay connected” and tweet or post information from the streets to the news channels Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The news channel had just deputized thousands of citizens as reporters and the only badge they needed in their hands was an electronic device. No fact checking, no need for accuracy, no time allowed to intercept postings from the streets. In an area surrounding a highly volatile issue which caused the declaration of a State of Emergency, news reporting adjusted to the pressure of immediate online access, with what appeared to be little consideration to consequences of a citizen’s immediate feed. Instead of a reporter facilitating the news from the scene, the news media simply shared their social media sites with viewers and asked them to report the news themselves.

The Internet is a global forum. It’s creation and lack of oversight has created a massive platform and new writing outlets. Websites defined as social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, have been so successful, humans deem it odd if an individual is not connected and sharing. If an individual has something to say, they merely need to create an online blog and publish it themselves. Higher education institutions have accommodated the global change by updating Communication and Marketing Degrees to include the growing career field related to online management.

Paul Grabowicz is the Bloomberg Journalism Chair and directs the New Media Program, at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He wrote an article titled “The Internet Is Transforming Journalism.” The first transformation he addresses is “Web-First Publishing.” He describes the change that has occurred within news media publishing and news reporting where the online presence of the media outlet has become the driving force of how the news is relayed to the public, and print media has taken a backseat, also known as “reverse publishing.” He says reverse publishing “marks a major shift from the old ‘shovelware’ approach of newspapers in the 1990s, in which stories were written first for the newspaper and then shoveled onto the web, often with few, if any, changes.”

This change has forced professionals within the journalism industry to put down their pens, turn off the typewriter, step away from the landline, swivel in their chairs and grab computers, laptops, smart phones, tablets as quickly as the electronic world produces the newest gadget, in order to be prepared to connect and report at a moments notice. Professionals, who have spent years, perhaps decades, in print media have been forced to either assimilate the new medium or retire from their career. The Pew Research Center (PRC) reported in its 2014 annual “State of the News Media” that 2013 was an explosive year for the digital world. PRC reports, “BuzzFeed, once scoffed at for content viewed as ‘click bait,’ now has a news staff of 170, including top names like Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Schoofs,” and that “Jim Roberts, New York Times’ former assistant managing editor, moved over to Mashable, and Ezra Klein of Washington Post now works at Vox Media.” These are not companies who have created a digital department, but are all companies who are digital brands. Digital is what they do. And therefore, PRC reports that while the digital realm has created entrepreneurs and the industry is showing 5,000 full time professional jobs, and the printing industry is decreasing due to job cuts related to the change in focus for news production.

The reciprocal contact between media outlets and its readers has broadened. Media content that provides comments for reader’s feedback and another new outlet called “live blogging,” give readers a platform to respond to the news. The reader no longer has to type up a letter and mail it to the editor. Instead, with a few clicks, the reader can engage other readers and perhaps the writer, in an instant response stream or discussion forum. Paul Grabowicz says one drawback to an online comment feed is that “a few people also will post comments that are offensive or disruptive, quickly turning an intelligent discussion into an online food fight.” Live blogging is conducted by a writer, who blogs a current news story and allows readers to discuss it, while the writer continues to moderate and respond within the discussion.

Matt Wells is The Guardian’s US blogs and network editor in New York, and also created their audio department. He wrote an article titled, “Live Blogging Is Transforming Journalism,” and while he claims to have a “personal interest” in this new forum, he declares positive and negative facets exist. As already discussed above, these online forums support the rising demand for instant news. Matt writes: “Live blogs give the ability to post significant developments quickly—more quickly than editing and re-editing a news article. They also allow us to link out to other coverage, to include comments from Twitter and Facebook, to display multimedia.” It’s a quick, direct and to the point forum. The negative side stems from the lack of a timeline to the story reported, the ability of the comments to continue far beyond the original news posting and the writer’s need to moderate and reintroduce the original story content. Paul Grabowicz reports the ability for a live feed of comments to deteriorate has caused some news companies to discontinue reader participation entirely, in order to protect the company’s reputation.

Facebook, originally created to allow people, or “users,” to connect with each other online for personal reasons, has become another medium for news reporting. Amy Mitchell, Director of Journalism Research, published a report in 2013 titled “The Role of News on Facebook.” While the research does not show that users access Facebook for the purpose of obtaining news, it showed that 78% of those polled read news while on Facebook. The research also showed that of those polled who are not news readers, 47% used Facebook as their only source of news.

Enter, Citizen Journalist. In 2008, Liane Hansen of “Weekend Edition Sunday” interviewed Jacob Saboroff, original host of HuffPost Live and co-founder of YouTube Nation. The two discussed the new blogging trend and an incident with Mayhill Flower, an elderly blogger, who attended two political functions that were closed to the Press and “off-the-record.” Mayhill scooped the entire nation’s media by reporting on her blog certain comments made by then Senator Obama and President Clinton during these events. Hansen and Saboroff discuss the ethics involved with journalism that didn’t seem to pertain to citizen journalism. Professional traditional journalists’ viewpoint is that it remains unethical to not identify oneself as a journalist or representative of the press when initiating contact for an interview. However, citizen journalists do not operate under the same professional codes of conduct and can act without oversight due to the ease and immediate access of posting via the Internet. Therefore, the Internet has forced the culture to assimilate another change. Soboroff states in the interview: “I think we will see a shift where politicians and campaign workers may approach these events differently going forward.” Hansen confirms: “In other words, approach them as if everything they say is on the record.”

Soboroff portrays some hope that codes of conduct will be applied to the citizen. He says, “I wouldn't be surprised soon if we see some sort of Internet ethics petition where citizen journalists and bloggers can sign up and have a code of their own.” It has been six years since that interview and the ethics petition of citizen journalist is yet to be circulated. The Internet movement has obliterated “off-the-record” for not only politicians, but also every citizen on the planet.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of “assimilate” is to “absorb and integrate (people, ideas, or culture) into a wider society or culture.” The journalism industry has progressed to assimilate the Internet. The Earth’s population has assimilated the Internet. Or perhaps the reality is, the Internet has assimilated us. Technological change is a given in every future, and so is loss. Time brings with it change and often in order to assimilate change, old traditions must abdicate to new traditions. The written news moved over for the radio. The radio shared with the TV. The TV abdicates to the Internet. And all mediums race to keep up with the changing tide, or be retired for good. Throughout history, humans have navigated change with perseverance, good and evil seemingly found within each progression.

The answer: Resistance is futile.

U.S. Supreme Court Called to Action

A recent letter to the editor of our school newspaper, "Student papers should not have a say in political issues such as . . . gay marriage (which I think should be [sic] band).” The writer was disappointed with the news staff for pursuing stories that were based off campus, such as movie reviews, community events and political issues.

Our government was created in part to provide American citizens a voice and to participate in policy. Therefore, each newspaper, as a media source, has an obligation to inform the students of topics that directly relate to their lives. This includes same-sex marriage; in order that they can be informed on issues they may vote to support – or ban.

We educate and employ both same sex partners and Washington State voters. The school is also temporary home to students who are registered voters in other states. The issue of “gay marriage,” or same-sex marriage, is a matter close to many student hearts, regardless of their sexual orientation. It may be safe to assume many of the students, if not most, have a vested interest in what is happening in politics, which effects their lives wherever they choose to live.
Same-sex marriage has been on the forefront of U.S. national news lately, as gay married couples have appealed to the federal courts by filing lawsuits against the states where they live, which have bans against same-sex marriages and refuse to recognize marriages.

The result has been, as of the date of this article, 30 states within the United States are now allowing same-sex marriage. Many of these state decisions are a direct result of federal courts determining state bans against same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. The only two districts that have not joined the movement are the 1st and 8th judicial circuits.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2006 that Nebraska State’s Measure 416, prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriages, was NOT unconstitutional – stating, "laws limiting the state-recognized institution of marriage to heterosexual couples ... do not violate the Constitution of the United States," and reversed the lower state court judge’s ruling striking the ban.

The 1st Circuit has yet to hear an appeal case relative to this issue. However, on Oct. 22, 2014, USA Today reported that a federal district judge in Puerto Rico upheld that territory’s ban on gay marriage. District Court Judge Juan Pérez-Giménez based his decision off of a precedent setting case and explained, “This court is bound by decisions of the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court may exercise the prerogative of overruling its own decisions." The plaintiffs will be appealing to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

Where does Washington State fit into this issue? Our state voters decided their position by legalizing same-sex marriage in 2012, while many other states in the U.S. still hold to a “one man, one woman” definition of marriage, with state bans still in place.

On October 7, 2014, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, of which Washington State is one of 11 states and territories, also ruled that bans on same-sex marriages are unconstitutional. The state of Alaska is still attempting to fight the decision so they can continue to impose their state’s ban on gay marriage.

The decisions of the circuit court of appeals have broad ramifications. Dan White, one of EdCC’s law professors, explained, “It’s important to realize that each circuit court has jurisdiction over multiple states. So when one case decision from one state is appealed to the federal level and a decision is handed down, it doesn’t just affect that particular state. It affects ALL states within that circuit. So when we have 16, 20, now 30 states where same-sex marriage is allowed, it doesn’t mean the states have decided to accept it, but rather that there is a new rule of law in town.” This means that some states are being forced to allow same-sex marriage.

And, why is that? White proceeds: “It’s been determined that the states have the right to define marriage. However, when state laws are viewed as infringing on a person’s civil rights, it becomes a [U.S.] Constitution issue and that needs to be reviewed at the federal level, not the state level.”
In response to the federal court’s decisions, five states - Indiana, Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, located in the 4th, 7th and 10th circuits respectively - filed their own appeal to the Supreme Court.

The goal? The Supreme Court review and reverse the lower court’s decision, upholding each state’s right to both define marriage within their own state lines and enforce the marriage bans.

The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals.

Scott Haddock is EdCC’s Program Director for the Paralegal Department, a civil rights attorney and professor of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Law class. Haddock commented, “The Supreme Court is not stupid. They know that by not accepting the appeals it would result in the overturning of many state bans on same-sex marriage. It’s hard not to believe that this is all unfolding exactly the way the majority of the Court expected it to.”

The headline on CNN.com read, “Same-sex marriage gets tacit victory from Supreme Court.” The article quotes Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, as stating, “Today's decision by the Supreme Court leaves in force five favorable marriage rulings reached in three federal appellate courts, ensuring the freedom to marry for millions more Americans around the country.”

Couples rushed to their local licensing offices to obtain marriage licenses. All court stays on same-sex marriages had been lifted. States where there didn’t seem to be an outcry for equality, suddenly were awarded the freedom to marry, as a by-product of location within the jurisdiction of its federal court.

Throughout the stories, an underlying message appeared: The Supreme Court supports same-sex marriage.

Not so fast. Is that what the court’s refusal means? Not entirely. According to The Aspen College Legal Research and Writing, “Approximately 8,000 petitions are filed with the United States Supreme Court each year.” How many of those cases are granted review? Approximately 100.

The book quotes an unnamed historian as stating that the decision of which cases to grant review is “arguably the most important stage in the entire Supreme Court process.” The literature states that just because the Supreme Court had denied reviewing a case, the denial does not mean the justices have researched the issue and agree with the lower court decision. It simply means the justices control their caseload by denying to review most of the appeal requests.

Haddock offers an explanation for the Court’s rationale: “The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act’ was an example where opposite decisions were being made all over the country. The Supreme Court had to review the appeals. Military personnel were allowed to serve in say, California, but not in, Wyoming. Here but not there. Haddock continues, "The Supreme Court did not have to make a final decision. Legislature repealed the act as they didn’t want the Supreme Court making a broader, sweeping decision about marriage. The Supreme Court does not want to be responsible to decide heavily controversial issues. They would prefer a larger voice to make the decision, and the Court is okay with how the Federal Appellate Courts across the country are resolving this issue in favor of marriage equality.”

Whatever the reason for the Court’s denial in hearing the state appeals, what happens in the meantime, while this issue remains in limbo, without a final national decision? What happens to the gay citizens in the 1st and 8th circuit who continue to live with marriage inequality, and what could possibly happen to their peers who are unifying and celebrating in 30 other states?

For those who’s marriages won’t be recognized: Their children are denied recognition as children of married parents. Same-sex married couple’s relationships are denied validation. They are forced to file a joint federal tax return but separate state tax returns. Property acquired and owned by the married couple is not recognized as a marital asset.

Same-sex married couples are not free to move wherever they want within the United States of America. They are restricted to live only where their marriages will be recognized; otherwise their union is labeled “illegal.”

For those who’s marriages are recognized by their residential state: The Supreme Court has sovereign power, which means that its decisions outrank and overrule all other courts of our nation. Those who pursue and consummate same-sex marriage run the risks of having their unions disintegrated if at a later date, the high court makes a final decision the opposite of the lower court of appeals.

This is concerning when reading in the Aspen College Series, “In its 2012-2013 term, the Court continued its practice of overturning lower court judgments in the vast majority of the cases that it fully reviewed. Approximately 72 percent of the time.”

The circuit court appeals process can and has taken years to be decided. The California Proposition 8, a 2008 ban against same-sex marriage, was not resolved and overturned until all final appeals were completed in 2013. Five years later.

There is an outcry surrounding the issue. Fox News Politics reported that advocates state, “Justices have an obligation to settle an issue of such national importance, not abdicate that responsibility to lower court judges.”

Wolfson continued to say, “We are one country, with one Constitution, and the court's delay in affirming the freedom to marry nationwide prolongs the patchwork of state-to-state discrimination and the harms and indignity that the denial of marriage still inflicts on too many couples in too many places."

It seems simple. The Supreme Court needs to make a decision.

If the compelling reasons for an appeals review in the Rules of the Superior Court are:

“a) a United States court of appeals has entered a decision in conflict with the decision of another United States court of appeals on the same important matter; (b) a state court of last resort has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with the decision of another state court of last resort; and, (c) a United States court of appeals has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this Court,”

– then it is clear. The United States Supreme Court is called upon to act and solidify this issue for the nation.

Applying Business Principles to Your Family

Men talking to Men.

Gifts to the ex - would you?

This IS a topic that has presented itself in our family. To protect the innocent, I won't discuss here how it all went down. I haven't seen anyone write about it before but I love this perspective.

If the relationship between the adult parents (sometimes an oxymoron) is healthy (which it should be but realistically, often isn't), it would be completely acceptable for an ex to help facilitate a gift to their children's other parent. It still does remain my job as a mother to show my daughter & son to uplift & celebrate their father. The problem occurs when the relationship between the adults is not healthy, brings with it conflict & turmoil and actions as this are not meant in a genuine, compassionate role but as an act to cause turmoil. And/or the ex spouse/other parent wants recognition for their efforts, instead of allowing it to be a gift from the children.


FIERY STEPMOM SAYS:

"Recently, in a stepmom facebook group, a poster asked the following question: "How do you feel about BM giving DH a Father's Day present? If you are a BM, do you plan to give DH a Father's Day present (either from yourself or via the kiddos)?"

Presents and recognition for parents, bio and step, is often a source of contention and stress in stepfamilies. Biological parents feel the obligation to recognize the other on events such as Father's Day and Mother's Day, and want to set a good example to their children, but stepparents often feel infringed upon when a gift comes to their spouse from the ex, or even from the kids but made with help from the ex. Gifts inadvertently become another way of putting kids in the middle, even when all adults have the best of intentions- and not all do! Some exes even use gifts and recognition to manipulate and guilt trip the other parent, or to give something disrespectful or suggestive. One stepmom mentioned that her husband's ex gave him pairs of pants for Father's Day with the comment that he needed to "stay in them"?

So where should split parents draw the line?

Obviously, the answer is going to be different for everyone, but here is my general rule of thumb: Would you give it to your boss?

Split parents, with rare exception, have to work on forming professional relationships with each other and disengaging themselves from the personal history. So in order to find the right balance between respect and recognition, it would help if moms and dads treat each other as they would treat their bosses (or clients, if you prefer to feel more in charge of the situation) - with respect and good will, but not with familiarity.

So, would you give your boss a Christmas present? Well, it's possible you might give a card. And she might happen to eat some of the cookies you left in the staff room, but you probably wouldn't. Would you give your boss a father's day card? It depends on your relationship. If you saw them that day you'd certainly wish him a happy father's day, and sure f you both had kids and you were on pleasant enough terms that it was a common non-business topic of conversation a card might be in order. But you wouldn't get them a gift. You wouldn't help their children get them a gift unless for some reason you both saw the kids on a regular basis AND there was no one else in the picture to help them. It's possible, but unlikely. You'd certainly encourage them to give a gift, but you wouldn't be a hands on helper.

So parents (and stepparents) out there struggling with this boundary, I would say you can absolutely recognize the other parent with a card or something small, but refrain from giving major gifts yourself unless you are truly one of the rare ex-couples who have developed a friendship post-separation. And if your ex has a spouse in the picture who can help the kids get a gift, allow that individual to do so. They know your ex better now, after all, and it is their place. You can and should model appreciation for your children, but modeling boundaries and respect is just as important, and far, far more peaceful. "

http://fierystepmom.blogspot.com/2012/06/would-you-give-it-to-your-boss.html

Get the....

The stages of parenting, through the education system eyes:


Elementary - participate, we welcome your presence. And your money.


Junior High - give us your kids, not your parental opinions. We still want your money.


High School - stay connected, don't abandon hope, it's tough but hang in there, ride out the storm. They now want your money.



College - Get the Hell Out.

We both want your money.

August Osage

"Life is very long" TS Elliott

"Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed."

Looks like a good one that will cut a little too close to reality.

Just today I was thinking how far our country has moved away from personal accountability. We work to circumvent owning up. We're allowing sex offenders to get away with offenses, murderers to work the program. The rights of the offenders have surpassed the rights of the victims. Thank you young man for being an example of what humans and our communities should be living.

"Well I won't go down that path"

Too bad more of us don't choose the easy road and stand up for what is truly humanly right and valuable.


Matt Cordle's confession, before being charged - of committing murder via drunk driving accident.

"The Time I Almost Killed My Child"

I had been waiting on eggshells for this day to come. I’d been waiting since our son, Rory, was 6 months old and diagnosed with a peanut allergy. He was now 3, and I was still waiting.

It was a Monday after work and I was shopping at Whole Foods in the gluten-free cookie area. My husband and I were due to go out of town that Friday and my mom was flying in to take care of the kids. I remember that I was exhausted. I remember picking up a box of vanilla gluten-free cookies, flipping it over, and reading the ingredients. The front of the box screamed “gluten-free!” and “soy-free!” and it appeared to be a company that cared about allergens in food. The cookies had cream inside, which Rory had never had before and I thought would be a special treat for his grandmother to give him. As I was walking away I noticed that the same cookies came in chocolate. I grabbed a second box and threw them in the cart.

I did not read the ingredients in the chocolate.

Fast forward two days, 8 p.m. My two-year-old was up past her bedtime when Rory saw the box of cookies in the pantry. He asked if he could have one and I said yes. They came in a two-pack. He said he wanted two because they came as two and I said, “So do my babies. One for you, one for Moo.” Emily was in a bad mood, took a tiny nibble and didn’t want it. Rory snatched up the extra, so excited about eating a cookie with cream. I took Emily to bed almost immediately so I was not in the room when Rory told his father, “This cream is spicy.”

40 minutes later Rory was watching cartoons on a computer in our bed. He came to the top of the stairs to call down to us that he was itchy. I took one look at him and nearly fainted. The back of one knee looked like it had been attacked by fire ants. I said to Andy, “Think. Help me think. What is new? What did we just introduce to him?” and I remembered: The cookies.

I ran to the pantry, grabbed the box and looked at the back. There were 12 ingredients and hazelnuts were the 10th one. I knew in that moment that I’d never seen this list of ingredients. I hadn’t even read the box.

We quickly double-dosed him with Benadryl and coated the hives in Benadryl cream. Residue from the cookies must have been on his hands and he touched the back of his knee. We threw him in the shower and washed his hair and skin. I sat with him bundled up in a towel on my lap and apologized over and over; telling him Mommy fed him a bad cookie on accident. I was so sorry and it would never happen again.

My son breaks my heart into a thousand pieces sometimes. He said, “Mommy, I think I’m going to be OK with that cookie.”

His eyes were bloodshot so I put an antihistamine drop in them. I asked if he could breathe and he said yes. I asked him to take a deep breath and he did. I asked him to show me his tongue and he did. It looked fine. My dinner was waiting downstairs so Andy stayed in our bed to keep an eye on him as he watched cartoons.

I was downstairs eating when he started to cough. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I listened. Cough. Cough. Cough cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough. Cough cough cough cough cough–

“ANDY!”

“What? I’m here with him.”

“But he’s coughing!”

“I know!”

I ran up the stairs. They were sitting in the dark. I flipped the lights on. His eyes were swelling. He was still coughing.

“We have to call 911,″ I said. “Let’s find an EpiPen and call 911. Bring him downstairs.”

Backstory: We got an EpiPen prescription for Rory in 2011 when he was skin tested at an allergist. The allergist had sent us home without the prescription despite his maximum allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, and cats, and serious allergies to egg, wheat, melon, grass, ragweed, and mold. The mothers on the allergy board of BabyCenter insisted that I call the doctor’s office the next day. When I did, I was told that it was the doctor’s policy to not prescribe anything of any kind for a patient unless that patient was going to sign up for a treatment plan. I shouted, “Exactly what treatment plan does this doctor want a 16 month old baby with a nut allergy to sign up for?” Many threats later, the prescription was called into our pharmacy, which we then renewed through another doctor every year since.

Rory was naked under a towel but Andy snatched him up and we went downstairs. I found the EpiPen. I found Andy’s phone.

“Let’s put him the car,” Andy said.

“No. We don’t have time for that.” I didn’t even know how to get to a hospital; we had only lived there two months. I dialed 911.

“911, What’s your emergency?”

My voice went shaky as the gravity of the moment hit me. “I need to know whether I have to use an EpiPen on my child,” I told the operator. She wanted my address, wanted my phone number, wanted to know how old he is and whether we needed an ambulance. “YES I NEED AN AMBULANCE BUT DO I NEED TO USE THIS EPIPEN ON MY CHILD?” I pleaded.

“Ma’am, I can’t tell you that. You need to calm down. You need to do what your doctor would want you to do in this situation.”

Rory was now coughing to the point he was going to vomit.

“She would want me to use the EpiPen.”

“Then you need to do that, ma’am. Stay on the phone with me. Do not hang up.”

I told Andy, “She says we need to do it. Do we really need to do this? What if he’s going to be OK without it?” I was afraid of the side effects of epinephrine. I was afraid of the pain. I was afraid of being the one to cause the pain.

Three firefighters came running up my stairs into the living room as we were getting clothes on Rory.

One firefighter pulled out a stethoscope and listened to his lungs. He was wheezing.

“You’ve got to use the EpiPen,” he said.

Two paramedics ran up the stairs to my living room. One was a female. She was so warm, so caring.

She took my hands in hers. “Mama, you’ve got to use this EpiPen,” she said. “It has to be you. You are scared and you need to do this because there will be a next time and next time you might not be where we could reach you. You have to learn to do this tonight.”

A police officer ran up the stairs into my living room. There were now nine people in my tiny living room.

Rory was gagging. I read the directions on the EpiPen for the 10th time.

A firefighter reached out his huge hands on Rory’s tiny thighs. The paramedic held his torso.

I said, “One, two, three” and tried to inject the EpiPen into his thigh. I didn’t work. I tried again. It didn’t work. I looked at the woman helplessly. She took it from me, looked at it, and handed it to another paramedic. He retracted the tip to reveal the needle and said there was no ejection; it would eject with the force of me hitting him with it.

I knew that. The pharmacist just told me about the redesign in January. Thank God all of these people were here to help me think.

Now I was on autopilot. “One. Two. Three.” Slam.

Rory howled like I’d stabbed him with a knife.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” I pulled it out, threw it, and he leapt into my arms. I was crushed. I wrapped my arms around his skinny body and said I was sorry a dozen times. This was worse than the time he tumbled out of his stroller onto the sidewalk when he was 2 weeks old. This was worse than when he saw me give the dog away. I was the worst mother of all time.

“Mommy, I don’t want another one of those!” he begged. I promised him there would be no more of those, ever.

Andy came into his line of sight and Rory leapt from my arms to his. The paramedics asked which hospital we wanted him taken to. They asked if I could tell that his cough was not as tight now. No, I could not tell. The swelling was going down in his eyes, they said. I could not tell. He looked like he’d been in a fight.

“Do you like teddy bears, little guy?” they asked. He nodded. My sweet child.

They packed up the EpiPen and the box of cookies. They packed Rory up into the ambulance. They strapped him into a seat and handed him a bear, which he took and hugged. Andy got in beside him. I stood at the back of the truck peering in the windows on my tiptoes, crying. No one knew I was there. They drove away and I came back in the house, sat on the stairs and cried. I called my mom.

What if, what if, what if? What if we were gone to California and Rory asked my mom for those cookies and this whole thing happened on her watch, alone? What would she have done? How far would it have gone? What if he’d fallen asleep before it set in? What if he wasn’t coughing? What if she didn’t hear him? What if he suffocated from anaphylaxis in his sleep?

Andy texted at midnight to say that they were staying until morning. I finally fell asleep and woke at 4 a.m., then relived the entire thing all over again.

Emily and I picked them up at seven in the morning. I called to let Andy know that we were outside of the emergency room. A moment later the double doors opened and out walked my husband with my tiny, beat-up child beside him. I drove them home.

Andy said that the cookies were on a shelf in their hospital room and that as they were getting ready to leave Rory asked, “Hey Daddy, can I have those cookies?”

As I got Rory out of the car he said, “Mommy, I want to go to the spiral slide.”

“Sure Bub, anything you want. Daddy will take you to the spiral slide.”

He gave me a stern look and said, “Mommy, you hurt me with that EpiPen.” A knife to my heart; I can’t believe he even knew the name “EpiPen” now.

Three hours later they went to the spiral slide and Rory wanted to go to school. Andy didn’t ask me what I thought– I would have voted against it. The kid was just in the ER for crying out loud. Ultimately, due to the remaining events of the day, I was glad that I did not get a vote.

I spent the entire morning holed up in my office, trying not to cry, talking to the moms on the BabyCenter food allergy board. Two of them pointed me to the same website, Kids With Food Allergies. One of them said, “You have to read the After The EpiPen section.”

I try, these days, to listen to the universe speak to me. I knew I needed to follow up on what they were saying. I loaded the site and saw the anaphylaxis section. I clicked, but the site wanted me to register to use it. Forget that, I closed it out. I’m not going to register to use a website. A minute later I remembered the universe, went back again and registered.

I read the section. There were hundreds of stories over the last several years about EpiPen experiences but the one my eye went right to said, “Every time the medicine wore off the allergic reaction came back.”

What the what? The reaction can come back when the steroid and epinephrine wear off. It can be worse or it can be different, and the doctor didn’t tell Andy that. I picked up the phone to call him.

“The reaction can come back. He can relapse when the meds wear off.”

“Tell the school,” he said. “You have to warn them.”

I composed an email to the director explaining what I’d just read. I assured her it was not the norm. I told her the signs of anaphylaxis that we’d observed the night before so she would be on high alert. I explained that the EpiPen had been redesigned. It was intuitive to try to eject it but it doesn’t work that way anymore. Andy had already given him a dose of Benadryl but I asked her to dose him again right then. She said she couldn’t give Benadryl without doctor orders if symptoms were not present– it was state law. I had Andy fax the doctor orders over. She called me to say that they were not signed. She could not allow it. Rory was about to go down for a nap. She assured me he was acting normally and that she would keep an eye on him.

At 2:30 the school called to say that Rory was awfully itchy. Andy took off immediately to go get him.

Minutes later I was in the ladies room washing my hands, reaching for a paper towel. The assistant burst through the bathroom door and said, “Robyn, your son had another episode. His school is on the phone.” I ran. The receptionist transferred the call up to the closest desk.

They had EpiPen’d him again. The paramedic got on the phone. They wanted to know where to take him. “Take him right back to Children’s Hospital,” I said. His tongue was swollen.

I ran to the car. I called Andy to change directions. “Go to Children’s,” I said. “He’s in an ambulance.”

We raced.

I called the school again. Was he stable? Was he speaking? Did he seem like he was going to be ok?

A wreck on the highway held me up 10 minutes, of all the days. I called my brother and wailed. I was going to kill my child. This was entirely my fault. He was going to die from this. For a second I pictured our family without my son in it. My heart.

I pulled up to the ER and parked. The ER doors were at 2 o’clock. An ambulance pulled up to the emergency entrance at 10 o’clock. I looked back and forth between the doors as I approached the building.

My child is in that ambulance, I thought. Nonsense. He had to be here already with how long it took me to get here. My child is in that ambulance. No, that’s not possible. Regardless, I began to sprint across the parking lot in high heels toward the ambulance as a paramedic walked around its corner with Rory in his arms, hugging another bear.

“That must be your mommy,” he said.

Rory recoiled. “I want Daddy.”

I laughed through my tears. “Well, Bub, you’re going to have to settle for chopped liver right now.”

The paramedics told the ER nurse that Rory was exposed to a food allergen for a second time. I had to interrupt and assure them that was impossible. It seems that on the ambulance ride Rory told the paramedics he “…found a bad cookie in Daddy’s car and ate it,” and they believed him.

Andy arrived and the school director was in the lobby waiting to hear that Rory was going to be OK. I went to speak with her and what she said has me firmly convinced that she saved his life. He’d woken from his nap with itchy ankles, at which time they called me and I said Andy was on his way. She dosed him with Benadryl and watched him. He asked for help in putting away his nap mat because other children were still sleeping on the floor. He then began to tell her about how he flew around outside, and how much he loved paper clips.

She knows my child. He doesn’t speak nonsense. This was not like him. She grabbed the list of anaphylactic symptoms. Euphoria and confusion were at the top– I didn’t even know this. Andy would not have known this. She pulled him into her office with the EpiPen and asked if he was alright. He began to cough. His eyes immediately swelled out and blackened. She pulled him into a hug and slammed the pen into his thigh.

Within seconds the swelling was gone. He was normal. He was able to speak to her.

What if he’d been at home? How far would it have gone? What if he’d been asleep? What if he died?

Rory was admitted for 24 hours. The next morning I dropped off my mother to relieve Andy. I was telling Rory that I had to go to work and he held up two wrists with a most serious little face, flashed his hospital bands and sang out, “Power to the rescue rings!”

After a very rough weekend, it was Monday evening before Rory was off the steroids and back to his semi-sweet self. He was back in our bed, watching cartoons, when I went up to fetch a blanket. He said, “Hey, come here. I’m gonna give you a kiss.” I leaned in for a smooch and he said, “I wuv you.”

I melted. He couldn’t have known how much his mother needed to hear those words.

It’s going to be a long time before I’m over this, if ever, really. I spent the next week feeling like I had post traumatic stress disorder and I was the one that caused the trauma. Don’t tell me I saved his life. Don’t tell me I did the right thing at the right time with the EpiPen and the ambulance. I can’t even hear those words. The truth is that I was tired and I didn’t read the ingredients on a box of cookies and I damn near killed my child. That’s a fact. This is going to take a while.

About the author


Robyn divides her time between wondering where those 30 points of IQ snuck off to after the birth of her first child and silently judging parents who let their kids eat red dye #40. In her spare moments she updates her blog The Robyn Nest and compulsively checks her Facebook for Paleo crockpot recipes.

For more great mom blogs check out scarymommy.com

God only gives special children...

What a tremendous uplifting story.

"A dinner out turned into an experience of a lifetime for a North Carolina family thanks to one stranger's heartfelt gesture.

Ashley England and her family want to thank a customer who paid for their meal Friday night and left behind a touching note about their special needs son. A photo of the note has gone viral, shared with thousands of people on Facebook.

England told CNN her family, including husband, Jason, 8-year-old son Riley, 4-year-old brother Logan, the boys' grandmother and their great-grandmother were together at the Stag & Doe restaurant in China Grove, North Carolina, for a family meal when their special needs son, Riley, started to get frustrated. He was hungry and couldn't get the Netflix on his mom's phone to work.

Since Riley suffers from epilepsy and is non-verbal, England said, it's hard for him to communicate and he screams and acts out when he's frustrated. England said he started to make screaming noises, beat on their table and threw her phone, catching the attention of some nearby customers.

Although a few customers were looking, it wasn't the worst experience her family has had out in public since Riley's condition was diagnosed when he was a toddler, England said. But she was frustrated, she said, and in the past few weeks it has been really tough controlling Riley's behavior.

So what happened next was just what the family needed.

As their waitress was delivering food to the family's table, England noticed another waitress, Tonya Griffin, walk up with a few tears in her eyes. She passed along a message from another customer that the England family says they will never forget.

Griffin told the family, "your meal's been paid for and he wanted me to give you this note." The note written on a customer's order slip read, "God only gives special children to special people."

England told CNN the gesture was really needed and it made her cry. "I just broke down, the past month has just been so hard."

She added, "He just doesn't know what we've been going through and how much it was needed at the moment."

When England updated her Facebook page about the family's experience Friday night, she ended it with this message: "Dear stranger, thank you for giving me a blessing tonight in a way you will never know."

England says she will be back at the restaurant when it reopens Wednesday -- its hours are 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday -- in hopes she can find the man to thank him personally."

--CNN

A True Love Song

Now this is a story to blog about - Don't bypass the video story below. If anything is worth moving souls today, this is.

My spouse received an email this week from his best friend, who's own partner passed away in mid life. Admonished us to grab our loved ones - enjoy the minutes we have with them. It's an often told tale. Death does occur. At any given moment. We cannot bypass the end. It's what we've done prior to the moment of passing that counts and leaves the imprint on the future. How we've shown those in our care that we truly love them with passion, dignity, loyalty, friendship, kindness, compassion and care. Stewards of the precious hearts handed to us during our time on this planet.

March on soldiers of the heart.


From COUPLE TO COUPLE/Parrot:

"If you happened to see the Top 10 songs on iTunes this past week, you may have noticed a sweet lullaby called “Oh Sweet Lorraine.” It’s there among all of the usual suspects: Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Robin Thicke, and Miley Cyrus. But this unlikely hit didn’t come from a musician. It came from 96-year-old Fred Stobaugh. He doesn’t sing or play an instrument. He’s an Illinois man who lost his wife of 73 years, Lorraine, in April. On a whim, the widower entered a song-writing contest he saw in his local paper.

Fred wrote the love song about his bride. “She was just the prettiest girl I ever saw,” he said about meeting Lorraine in 1938 at an A&W root beer stand. “I just fell in love with her right there.” Fred and Lorraine dated two years before marrying in 1940. They would have celebrated their 73rd anniversary in June. “After she passed away [at age 91], I was just sitting in the front room one evening by myself, and it just came right to me,” Fred says of his song. "I just kept humming it and singing it.”

He isn’t the only one humming it now. The tune has gone viral, beating out Justin Timberlake and skyrocketing up the charts. It’s a simple song – and that’s the beauty of it. “Oh sweet Lorraine,” the chorus begins, “I wish we could do all the good times over again.” The song continues, “Life only goes around once, but never again.” Ultimately, the song is a love letter set to music from a devoted husband who misses his best friend and the love of his life. It’s heartbreaking, it’s beautiful, and it just might make you cry.

Stories of enduring love have a way of doing that. Why? Because they are aspirational! We all want a love that goes the distance, overcoming hardships, and yet still stirs up passion within us to write a love song – even after 73 years of marriage."

90 Minute History of Fashion

From "No one's the Bitch"

Only something you can understand if you've done the time. A spot on article, "What divorced (biological) moms should know about step moms" -


1. She isn’t playing house with your child and your ex-husband.

Stepmoms are trying to build their own family, a very real family that includes their husband, and children who aren’t theirs.

Some of them will grow to love their stepchildren and some won’t, but they’re doing their best to ensure the child still grows up feeling happy and loved.

They’re nurturing a marriage and trying to figure out their role in the stepchild’s life. And while you knew your place in your child’s life from day one, stepmoms can spend years trying to find theirs.

2. It’s not about YOU.

A stepmom’s priority is her marriage. When she does something for her stepchild, often the motivation has nothing to do with you. It’s not about trying to make you look bad or make you feel “less than.”

The motivation is the safety and happiness of her stepchild. The motivation is the love she has for her husband.

She’s trying to do the right thing – just like you would.

Similarly, when she supports her husband, the intention is not to go “against” you. In fact, there are times when stepmoms actually side with mom, although — unless you have a decent relationship with the stepmom in your situation — you’d never know it.

3. Stepmoms often feel powerless and alone.

Stepmoms have no legal rights with their stepchild. They understand this; their stepchild already has a mom and a dad. But it gets difficult when they’re turned away for trying to obtain something as simple as a library card for their stepson or stepdaughter. Or when the doctor’s office won’t give them any information, even though they will be the one driving the child to the appointment and giving them their medication.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially for stepmoms who have taken care of their stepchildren since they were very small.

It can make a woman feel unimportant and insignificant. It’s a feeling only a fellow stepmom could understand.

In addition, stepmoms are often powerless when it comes to their stepchild’s behavior. This is a struggle, because they are greatly affected by the unwanted behavior, but they don’t have the authority to do anything about it. If they’re lucky, their husband will be supportive and listen to their concerns, but this isn’t always the case.

4. When you contact their household, it often feels weird and disruptive.

Stepmoms know you have the right to call your children as often as you’d like. And they understand you need to talk to your ex occasionally about parenting issues. But it can still feel like an intrusion.

Stepmoms are constantly struggling to find ways to bond with their stepchildren. And when you call, it interrupts the activity in the house and their stepchildren are immediately distracted. Any bonding that was going on is gone.

Stepmoms may feel as though you’ve crept into every aspect of their lives. And your calling their house is another painful reminder of that.

5. Stepmoms don’t cross your boundaries on purpose, they just can’t see them.

Many moms complain that the stepmom is trying to “parent” their child. But a fundamental problem seems to be, what moms consider “parenting,” stepmoms consider “being responsible” or “supporting their husbands.”

Remember, many stepmoms aren’t sure of their role.

They’re stumbling along, figuring it out as they go. And it’s difficult to try and do the ‘right thing’ only to realize you’ve just caused mom a coronary. It’s not intentional.

Stepmoms wish there was a rule book. They wish the situations were black and white. They wish they could be on the same page as mom and dad, and know how to handle every situation.

But they don’t.

This is where neutral, open communication would be to everyone’s advantage.

Unfortunately, for many stepmoms, their first experience of mom is an emotionally-charged phone call, email or text telling her she has “no right” to do whatever it is she did. To a stepmom, this feels like you’re kicking her when she’s already down. It comes as a shock — because again — her primary intention was to help her husband and care for her stepchild.

6. A stepmom’s marriage has a 60-70 percent chance of failing.

And one Boston study reported that 75% of the women who were surveyed said if they had it to do all over, they would NOT marry a man with children. That says a lot about the difficulties stepmoms face.

This may not mean much to you personally, but it means your children will have to experience the prolonged process of a second divorce and deal with the aftermath.

7. Stepmoms are often disrespected or ignored by their stepchildren.

There are various reasons for this, chief among them understandable and agonizing loyalty conflicts for the child, but regardless — it still hurts. Stepmoms are only human!

Life isn’t always flowers and butterflies at the other household. Many children feel weird about having a stepmom. They don’t know what it means or what to do with it, so they act out or just ignore the stepmom, which is awkward for everyone.

And most stepmoms don’t have “unconditional love” to fall back on. When a child misbehaves, wreaks havoc, or throws a tantrum, parents may get angry and frustrated, but their unconditional love makes it bearable.

Stepmoms aren’t so lucky. There’s no unconditional love coming to rescue them from wanting to scream at their stepchild or run the other way, sob somewhere private, and never look back. All they have are difficult feelings and nowhere to put them.

But they do come back, day after day, because they believe their marriage and their stepfamily are worth it.

8. A simple “thank you” can go a long way.

Stepmoms wish you’d give them even the smallest acknowledgement. For a lot of women, being a stepmom is one of the hardest things they’ve ever done. Often, their needs and wants come last, their schedules aren’t their own, and they’re affected by a situation they didn’t create.

Many stepmoms take excellent care of their stepchild, with little or no reward. They get no thank you, no love from the child, and no appreciation from anyone but their husband — if they’re lucky.

They make many sacrifices in order to be with the man they love. So to only be referenced as “she” (or even worse), or to be completely ignored by you, can hurt them deeply. What they wouldn’t give for a simple “thank you” or a nod in their direction.

I believe that kind of recognition can heal wounds.

Do stepmoms ever act from ego or a sense of competition with the ex-wife?

Sure, just as some moms do.

But it’s important to grasp the implications of a bigger context here: being a stepmom is uniquely difficult and confusing. If you’re a mom, could you see yourself struggling in her shoes?

Perhaps, one day, with a better understanding of each other, the mom/stepmom relationship will be one of championing the other, instead of automatic conflict.

http://www.noonesthebitch.com/2011/06/09/what-divorced-moms-should-know-about-stepmoms/