Letter To Santa

 

Dear Santa,

I hope you don't mind me calling you by your first name. I have long known that you are not real, but, since I am entering my second childhood, I am going to suspend disbelief for a bit.

I have a long list for you and I urge you to hurry because much of this needs to be done BEFORE the holidays.

First off, I would like to see all the adoption records and Original Birth Certificates opened for both Mothers and Adoptees, without exception. I think that we have been maligned enough and our children have been denied enough to suit the Puritanical idea that we should have been punished for being human. Infant adoption should be a very last resort kind of thing and could we try that legal guardianship thing? I would like to see the concepts of social engineering and the importance of money removed from that equation, and special efforts made to keep Mothers and their infants together. We both know, don't we Santa, that is the way things SHOULD be?

Now for some toughies. Can you do something to deep-six Citizens United, Corporate Personhood, ALEC and the Dominionists? They are sending the world to hell in a hand basket in the name of the almighty dollar and ignorance disguised as ideology. Could you make the media trustworthy again and restore journalistic ethics? I know it's a tall order, but I have been a very good girl. If you could scuttle DOMA, too, that would be wonderful.

As I am sure you know,(for I am sure word reaches the busy environs of your North Pole Headquarters) we are in an election year. A little special consideration to the current POTUS would be much appreciated and really good for our country. Oh, and there is a big list I will be sending you of some people for your naughty list, Tea Party Members, John Birchers, KKK members and a bunch of Republican Governors. If you could see fit to engineer their disbanding and defeat, it would be a Merry Xmas, indeed!

How are you on reversing global warming and protecting the environment? Our businesses and governments have not done a real good job at this. In fact, the North Pole might be snowless and iceless if  fossil fuel craziness and emissions and pollution aren't halted. They are cutting down the trees faster than we can grow them. I have four great-grandchildren who might never again see a glacier or a wild animal or a forest if greed doesn't turn to green.

How busy are your elves and can you spare some of the heftier ones? I think the breach in the wall between church and state needs to be repaired and made stronger. For those of us who are not religious, the protection of that wall is essential. Those dedicated fundamentalists can be vicious! One even wrote a letter to the editor of her local paper, demanding that all atheists be run out of the country....and the editor printed it! That was a real "face-palm" moment for me.

It goes without saying that I would love to see an end to war, racism, sexism, and all the stuff that people do to make themselves feel like the big cheese and make others seem unworthy and expendable. If we can stop hating and stop fighting, then we won't have as much poverty and crime. I mean, as a species, aren't we supposed to grow up at some point?

Now, I don't wish anyone ill or, Dear Me No, dead, but there is a state called Utah.........I guess not, huh?

I'll have wine, cheese and goodies waiting for you, Santa. If they are not to your taste, I'll just have to eat them myself. It's fun being a kid again.

Love and Thank You,

Your Friend, Robin

Beheading The Hydra

"The Hydra is first mentioned in the Greek myth of Hercules, in the golden age of the culture (500 to 300 BC) when the hero, as one of many jobs, had to kill the Lernaean Hydra The most famous of the Hydra species.

The descriptions vary, but they always mention an aquatic serpent like creature that lives in a subterranean cave in Lernea Lake in Greece. It is described to have many heads (the number can vary from 3 or 5 to 10 to 100 to 1.000 and even to 10.000); the reason for this is that when you decapitate one head of a Hydra, two will grow in its place."

I have long thought of the myth of the Hydra as being representative of the complexities of the problems we often experience in life. Sometimes, it's not as simple as cutting off the head and waiting for the problem to die. Sometimes, we have to stand back and look at the big picture, see the monster for what it is (a big scary sumbitch) and gird our loins accordingly.

In the US, today, we are up to our collective asses in Hydras. We are surrounded by greed, poverty, ignorance, intolerance, injustice, malice and superstition. It often seems that if we gain a little victory over one issue, another two pop up in its place. We are frustrated, frightened and, too often, looking for someone to blame rather than trying to find progressive and effective solutions.

The US has created its own Hydra. It has scales of greenbacks, teeth of want, the anger of ignorance, and the poison of lies spews from its mulitple mouths. The head to be feared the most is that of ignorance. The blind acceptance of the words of the wealthy and powerful, the need to have others do our thinking for us and the assault on the human necessity of a good education has weakened us. People actually support those who would enact laws that are in direct violation of the these same voters' best interests.

I remember talking, years ago, to a woman who was sweet but not well educated. She was insisting that something was true that was not because she said she read it in the newspaper. I asked her what paper and she, triumphantly, showed me her copy of the National Enquirer. Ohhkaayyyy. This copy was stating that LBJ was behind labs that were experimenting on intergalactic aliens. I have finally realized that a biased and controlled media is also one of the heads of the Hydra. There are those who will believe that there IS a Bat Boy that was found, living in a cave and that Elvis was a secret agent and is living in Russia after faking his death. There are those that will believe the POTUS is a Kenyan Muslim and will never be shaken from that erroneous belief.

With gullibility of this nature, why not have a program on a so-called "educational" network about ancient aliens whose existence is postulated by pseudo-scientists with bad hair? Why not have Jerry Springer and Maury and Storage Wars and all the dumb stuff for dumb people that is aired on TV? Why not have religion trying to take over the law of the land? Hell, we rank and file Amurricans will believe anything.

I finally have arrived at the conclusion that we need to stab the Hydra in its heart. Our system needs renewing, renovating and a big cleaning job needs to be done in our Congress and various state legislations. We need to put new bricks in that wall between Church and State and reinforce it with rebar and concrete. Without this kind of action, the small minds and greedy hearts that are running the various shows will just multiply.

We can only do what we can do. We can speak out, stand up for the principals of equality and dignity and higher learning. We can vote, we can write, we can blog and we can, at least TRY to kill this monster that is taking us down. I have no idea of how successful we can be, but I do know that if we do nothing, then we deserve what we get. And that is the truth.

A Nice, Little Town

I live in Sanford, FL. It is a homogeneous community. We run the gamut from white to black and all colors in between. There is a lovely little downtown made up of mostly antique and art stores with some nice eateries. Sanford sits on the banks of the St. Johns River where it widens into Lake Monroe. For the most part, people tend to get along. But there are those who still carry the hate of racism bred by fear of anything or anyone different in their hearts. 

Recently, a young black man was shot and killed by a self-appointed vigilante. The 911 calls and the circumstances definitely lead to the conclusion that this death, which devastated a family, did NOT have to happen. Little Sanford was in the news for all the wrong reasons and so many of us who live here found ourselves angry that this happened and distressed for those touched by this terrible tragedy. Until this happened, very few people knew where Sanford is, who Trayvon Martin was and who George Zimmerman is.

I've not posted in a long time. I have found myself so overwhelmed by the injustices across the board in our nation, today, that it has been difficult for me to sort it all out. The shooting of Trayvon Martin has been one part of the insanity that seems to permeate our lives on every front. Political and social unrest are the norm and many of us are learning that things are not the way they taught us, in Government studies and American History, in school. I thought I had gone past my naivete', but I still had and still have a lot of eye-opening to do.

The inequities between the 1% and the 99% have never been more obvious. The fact is that there ARE people in this society whom those in power, the people able to make decisions and do things, believe are more entitled that others. That has long been obvious in the adoption industry. But now, there is no longer even a feeble attempt to conceal that sense of entitlement. If you are part of a certain race, a certain religion and a certain income level, then you are immediately considered among the elite. That sucks.

I wonder if we are seeing a backlash for daring to elect a Chief Executive who happens to be a man of color? Gee...Ya think? I remember being elated when the POTUS was elected. I thought that this was it...we, as a society, were finally maturing past the ignorance of the past. Boy, was I ever under a misapprehension.

The past year of campaigning has been an orgy of hate, lies and insanity and now there are people who remain uninformed or consider themselves above the fray who could contribute to the taking down of the real America. The acceptance of single motherhood may well be one of the casualties if this horrible thing were to come to pass.

So no, I have not abandoned the plight of Exiled Mothers and adopted people. I am dealing with the fact that my daughter and I are oil and water, right now. It is a conundrum that takes the breath out of me from time to time. I still stand for the right for Mothers AND their Adult Children to have access to OBC's and adoption records. I still stand fast against infant adoption that is, so often, terribly unnecessary. I still support Planned Parenthood, access to birth control and The Right To Choose. 

But I have seen that all of the previous paragraph is one page of the Book of The Decline Of America. We have a lot of work to do on many fronts. No one of us can do everything. Not all of our priorities are the same.

Right now, my attention is on the simple fact that for us to survive as a nation, we need to learn how to accept each other. We need to care about what happens to those who are hurt, needy and crying out for help. We need to be a community.

We need to be, on the inside, what Sanford seems to be on the outside.