So, I’ve been, quite obviously, down in the dumps recently. There is good news from me now : I have exceeded my goal for the MS Walk this coming Sunday, May 26!
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me. You can see who here here
And do come and see all the runners downtown on Sunday. The weather’s meant to be gorgeous .
Following on from yesterday. What to do about firearms? Bombs? Weapons of mass destruction? Protesting against them isn’t stopping them from being used.
What to DO.
What I have is done is what I mentioned here: registered for the next MS Walk here in Edmonton on May 26, 2013. What on earth does that have to do with countering explosives? Nothing. It’s about the exact opposite.
My aunt has had MS for years, and it’s robbed her of so much I can’t contemplate it, even though I’ve watched it happen to her. I’m starting off very slow. I’m not a runner — I’m a 38-year-old with a tricky ankle and I nearly coughed up a lung the one season I played Gaelic football. So I’m doing the 2km walk, and have set the recommended goal of $125. I’m sure there’ll be no objections if I happen to raise more. My hope is, now that spring has (hopefully!) arrived, I can get out more, get more fit, and do more at the next event.
The point is to support LIFE. Instead of trying to take on guns or bombs head on, in my teeny tiny way, I’m defying them. That’s not to say petitions to stop explosives are pointless. However, at the same time, wouldn’t it be cool if every person did something — volunteering at a hospital or school, donating blood, or helping with a fundraiser — and every time a lobbyist argued for more spending on weapons, you could look them in the face and say: “I’m raising money for cancer research because tax money’s being spent instead to shoot people.” Then just walk away and keep doing your work to fight cancer. With a smile.
Every time something horrible happens, yes, be sad, and say out loud that it needn’t have happened. And then knuckle down and keep helping someone else to LIVE.
Instead of being angry and frustrated, I’ve going to say instead to anyone who just wants to hurt people: ” I DEFY YOU. “
It’s been a crappy couple of weeks in the world, what with this and this. But then it’s been a crappy few…years, in Syria and Bangladesh.
This photo made the rounds on Twitter shortly after the bombing in Boston.
Everyone agreed it was a beautiful thing to do.
Like everyone on earth, I was glued to the news for the entire week ending April 20. For almost two days, a major American city was in shutdown, while everyone there waited anxiously for it to be over, and then everyone was relieved and happy when it was over. Everyone knew it was going to end.
And I can’t be the only person who thought; for those guys in that photo from Syria, what happened in Boston for those two days happens every day. But it has no end.
Then this week, again, a horrible building collapse in Bangladesh. Hundreds of people killed because their bosses told them to keep working in an unsafe building to cheaply make clothes for…me. And it’s happened before. And it is happening every day in sweatshops — that’s what they are — in China, and Mexico, for example. There are too many more.
I had the notion to start an online petition, telling governments to stop selling weapons to other countries, since that’s partly what’s fuelling the war in Syria — and I found dozens of petitions asking for that already in progress, as well as others against landmines and the sale of assault weapons in the US. There are protests too, at every G8 summit, against the way our economy currently works — partly against sweatshops. But they continue to operate.
What to do? I’m trying to think.
I need to do spring cleaning–picking out the clothes I don’t / can’t wear anymore, washing and donating them, and bringing the things I wouldn’t foist on anyone for recycling. And then…there are some lovely-looking consignment shops on 124th Street I could check out. Re-using rather than buying cheaply-made clothes. If everyone did that, would it help?
And as for weapons…ugh. I’ve written before on what I think about firearms. I don’t know that there’s anything I can directly do about that. But I have an idea…which I’ve just tweeted about, if you’d care to have a look on the right.
