Here's a real hero

I am privileged to know another real, live hero.

Check it out on my Wordpress blog.

We're Moving

I've consolidated my six blogs down to three - I'll be posting about our furry friends over at my new blog at: http://lindafaulkner.wordpress.com./

Join me there and feel free to request a guest appearance.

Z is for Zebra

I have two questions for you:

1. Are zebras horses?
2. Are they white with black stripes or black with white stripes?

I also have the answers:

1. Yes, they're African equids (i.e., horses, donkeys, and zebras).
2. Black with white stripes.

Other interesting facts:

• Three types of zebras exist.
• Zebras are herd animals.
• Zebra stripes are a form of camouflage and, when standing in a group of other zebras, one zebra is hard for predators to identify.
• No two zebras have the same stripe pattern--each pattern is like a unique fingerprint.

My sister went on safari in Africa and actually saw several herds. Neat animals.

Z end. Thanks for visiting me during the A to Z Blogging Challenge!

37 years ago today...

I have been remiss with my blogging. Life seems to interfere with everything, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, my priority list in recent weeks eliminated things such as personal time and weekends off. I'll be presenting a two-hour workshop at the annual convention of the National Association of Insurance Women in Las Vegas this week and, I'm hoping, that event will cap off a six-week period of frenzied activity.

Which prompted my memory of 37 years ago today.

As I typed the date on an invoice this morning, I was reminded of my graduation from high school ... yes, 37 years ago today. Mom couldn't make it because she was recovering from major surgery. I don't remember much else, except the weather was fine and so was my dress--even though it was covered for a good portion of the day by that awful blue robe. (Do kids even wear clothes beneath their graduation robes these days?)

That's me to the left of my two cousins (Eileen and Ellen) in the picture. It was taken in the spring before I graduated. Silly me: at the time I thought I was fat. I didn't have a clue about fat at that time. Nor did I have a clue about much of anything.

I was incredibly naive. Life took care of that, too.

But I did want to be a writer--a published writer. And, voila, 28 years later it happened.

What hopes and dreams did you have on the day you graduated from high school? Have you achieved them? If not, when are you planning to do so?

Rejoicing about Death

I seldom publicly share my opinions and beliefs with respect to politics, religion, and other controversial issues. I feel compelled, however, to air my feelings about the rejoicing generated by the death of Osama bin Laden.

Yes, he was a terrorist. Yes, during his lifetime he was responsible for many, many deaths and much suffering. And yes, the world is a safer place now that he's no longer alive.

No, I don't have a problem with the fact that our president (and government) had him killed. What I have a problem with is the unrestrained and gleeful rejoicing.

As a person whose life was touched by the violent acts of a horrible man (not bin Laden), I understand the anger, the pain, the sense of loss, and all the other traumas a person experiences when a loved one suffers at the hands of another. I understand the desire and need for revenge--I've felt it personally. I also understand exactly how it feels to wish an awful person dead--and I'm not proud of that feeling.

What I don't understand is feeling joyful about death--even a horrible person's death.  The fact that Osama bin Laden was evil enough to warrant assassination is sad. It's horrifying and mind-boggling. The fact that he possessed enough personal power and political influence to to affect the world on such a large scale--and that he used all that power and influence in evil, hurtful ways--is even more horrifying and mind-boggling.

Yes, I'm glad bin Laden can't harm another person and that his evil influence has been removed from the earth. I can't help believing, however, that all the rejoicing, dancing, and happiness about his death is ghoulish.

I once attended the sentencing hearing of a man who was jailed for committing a sexual assault. Did I hate the man? Yes. Did I pray for the death penalty? Yes. But during the hearing my heart also broke for the woman sitting behind me in the courtroom: the man's mother.

As much as I was suffering, as much as the assailant's victims were suffering, so was the assailant's mother. She had to witness, with her own eyes and ears, the extent of her son's depravity and evilness. She has to live with the knowledge that she gave birth to him. She has to think of him--every day for 18 years--locked up in prison as he pays for the crimes he commited.

Death wears many faces and none of them deserve rejoicing.