I like Mark Bittman. He writes excellent books and he uses what he knows to help other people to do more than cook intelligently.
I like Mark Bittman because he gives more than a passing thought to what it means to be a responsible citizen of our planet.
This is only one example that has sent me on the one more journey to knowledge, understanding and hope, and not just because I live and work in this aspect of living.
New York Times
Mark Bittman
What We're Reading Now
http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/what-were-reading-now-4/?_r=0#more-5163
Showing posts with label system failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label system failure. Show all posts
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Holding orange in my heart
Native News Network
Time to bring orange shirt day
http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/time-to-bring-orange-shirt-day-september-30-to-indian-country.html
I am not ready for this year, because this is the first year. I will be ready next September 30th.
The article:
WILLIAMS LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Phyllis Webstad's grandmother took her to buy a new outfit for her first day of school. Even though she was only six years old, her grandmother allowed Phyllis to pick out a shirt to wear to school. Part of the outfit, she selected was an orange shirt. Excited about attending school, she wore the orange shirt with pride.
She was to wear the orange shirt only one day at school – the first day. She never saw her orange shirt again.
“The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't matter, how no cared and how I felt I was worth nothing,” reflects Webstad decades later about her experiences at the Indian residential school.
“All of us little children were crying and no one cared.”
Phyllis, along with others First Nations children who attended residential schools, were stripped of their own clothing and made to wear uniforms furnished to them.
The military-like Indian residential schools for were to First Nations Native students were what Indian boarding schools were to American Indian students in the United States.
Removing Native children from their families and putting them in government – and sometime religion – run residential – or boarding schools – in the guise of "killing the Indian, saving the man" was federal policy both in Canada and the United States that continued for close to a century.
Most of the Native children were not allowed to see their parents or families for months – and some even years. The intention was to strip Native children of their "Indianness."
It is a dark chapter among Native people.
So much so, one elder in Canada refers to September as "crying month" because of the history associated with September being the month children were removed from their homes.
“I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further than the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don't matter. Even with all the work I've done!”
September 30th has been declared Orange Shirt Day annually in Canada, in recognition of the harm the residential school system did to children's sense of self-esteem and wellbeing, and as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that everyone around us matters.
Among First Nations the theme on t-shirts this year is "Every Child Matters." Even if time may not allow you to have a printed shirt with this theme on it, it is a great time for all of Indian country to wear an orange shirt as a reminder of the pain it represented our ancestors that lingers even to today.
posted September 26, 2013 1:10 am edt
Time to bring orange shirt day
http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/time-to-bring-orange-shirt-day-september-30-to-indian-country.html
I am not ready for this year, because this is the first year. I will be ready next September 30th.
The article:
WILLIAMS LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Phyllis Webstad's grandmother took her to buy a new outfit for her first day of school. Even though she was only six years old, her grandmother allowed Phyllis to pick out a shirt to wear to school. Part of the outfit, she selected was an orange shirt. Excited about attending school, she wore the orange shirt with pride.
She was to wear the orange shirt only one day at school – the first day. She never saw her orange shirt again.
“The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't matter, how no cared and how I felt I was worth nothing,” reflects Webstad decades later about her experiences at the Indian residential school.
“All of us little children were crying and no one cared.”
Phyllis, along with others First Nations children who attended residential schools, were stripped of their own clothing and made to wear uniforms furnished to them.
The military-like Indian residential schools for were to First Nations Native students were what Indian boarding schools were to American Indian students in the United States.
Removing Native children from their families and putting them in government – and sometime religion – run residential – or boarding schools – in the guise of "killing the Indian, saving the man" was federal policy both in Canada and the United States that continued for close to a century.
Most of the Native children were not allowed to see their parents or families for months – and some even years. The intention was to strip Native children of their "Indianness."
It is a dark chapter among Native people.
So much so, one elder in Canada refers to September as "crying month" because of the history associated with September being the month children were removed from their homes.
“I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further than the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don't matter. Even with all the work I've done!”
September 30th has been declared Orange Shirt Day annually in Canada, in recognition of the harm the residential school system did to children's sense of self-esteem and wellbeing, and as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that everyone around us matters.
Among First Nations the theme on t-shirts this year is "Every Child Matters." Even if time may not allow you to have a printed shirt with this theme on it, it is a great time for all of Indian country to wear an orange shirt as a reminder of the pain it represented our ancestors that lingers even to today.
posted September 26, 2013 1:10 am edt
Friday, July 19, 2013
It is not about the food stamps
A woman, who recently moved from Ohio to Texas, died by her own hand during a standoff at a Texas state welfare office, where she had gone to obtain food stamps. She shot her two children before taking her own life. The children are hospitalized in critical condition.
This could happen anywhere. Rising social service needs in my own community are in direct and losing conflict with declining resources. One thing that is happening here is that private agencies are increasing their service loads and creating new programs, an endeavor that churches and other faith communities are joining.
We have decent homeless shelters. All of them are not just shelters who offer a few programs, they are Programs that happen to have a shelter(s) attached to them. We also have a couple of daytime programs that provide social contact, meals and life skills help, as some of the shelters here do not allow residents to hang around during certain hours. They are supposed to be out, looking for jobs, taking working and training at various state agencies, and some of them find their way to me, where I help them with all things employment related, including access to social services, all things I may share at some other time.
Programs, shelters and social services (both public and privately funded) are there to help with not only the homelessness, but the issues and life circumstances that lead someone to being homeless. Mental illness is right up there, at the top. Dangerous behaviors, self-medication with alcohol or other drugs, including prescription medications,
Some sheltering programs are more strict than others, something which I personally support, having lived in one of them last year, and they range from that model of responsibility all the way down to one being way to touchy-feely to be of significant help except for the most motivated.
Those who are not especially motivated, they drift from shelter to shelter, city to city, state to state and back again, their disruptive behavior, thieving ways and the continuance of the substance abuse wearing out their welcomes, initiating their next trip, next stop, until it all begins again. They pretend to have whatever issue that the shelter is designed to help. The nicest thing they are called is shelter hoppers.
I share all of this because it is my experience and every moment of this work shapes and informs what I do and how I want to do it.
I have no idea if the woman was employed, had a place to live, if her children were in school, if she were fleeing domestic abuse or substance use, mental health care issues, none of the things that might have contributed to her desperation this week. All anyone knows is that she was desperate enough to have a gun, cause a standoff with the authorities and eventually injure her children and take her life.
Whilst it will be helping and interesting and useful to learn more about her, not a thing can be done to help her and her family now. All for which we can hold hope is that we can learn from what happened and use that to try to prevent it from happening to some other family in some other city.
And, whatever we learn, I am positive that what happened was not just about being denied food stamps. It was about something that began/happened, or did not begin or happen, much earlier. It is about a breakdown, a failure in the System. It is about of things to which we had better begin acknowledging and for which we take serious action. It is about resources being inappropriately wasted and not being available for those truly in need, even if turns out that the woman in this situation was not failed by anyone or any agency. In fact, I guarantee it.
CBS News
Mom denied food stamps shoots kids, kills self
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57337766/mom-denied-food-stamps-shoots-kids-kills-self/
This could happen anywhere. Rising social service needs in my own community are in direct and losing conflict with declining resources. One thing that is happening here is that private agencies are increasing their service loads and creating new programs, an endeavor that churches and other faith communities are joining.
We have decent homeless shelters. All of them are not just shelters who offer a few programs, they are Programs that happen to have a shelter(s) attached to them. We also have a couple of daytime programs that provide social contact, meals and life skills help, as some of the shelters here do not allow residents to hang around during certain hours. They are supposed to be out, looking for jobs, taking working and training at various state agencies, and some of them find their way to me, where I help them with all things employment related, including access to social services, all things I may share at some other time.
Programs, shelters and social services (both public and privately funded) are there to help with not only the homelessness, but the issues and life circumstances that lead someone to being homeless. Mental illness is right up there, at the top. Dangerous behaviors, self-medication with alcohol or other drugs, including prescription medications,
Some sheltering programs are more strict than others, something which I personally support, having lived in one of them last year, and they range from that model of responsibility all the way down to one being way to touchy-feely to be of significant help except for the most motivated.
Those who are not especially motivated, they drift from shelter to shelter, city to city, state to state and back again, their disruptive behavior, thieving ways and the continuance of the substance abuse wearing out their welcomes, initiating their next trip, next stop, until it all begins again. They pretend to have whatever issue that the shelter is designed to help. The nicest thing they are called is shelter hoppers.
I share all of this because it is my experience and every moment of this work shapes and informs what I do and how I want to do it.
I have no idea if the woman was employed, had a place to live, if her children were in school, if she were fleeing domestic abuse or substance use, mental health care issues, none of the things that might have contributed to her desperation this week. All anyone knows is that she was desperate enough to have a gun, cause a standoff with the authorities and eventually injure her children and take her life.
Whilst it will be helping and interesting and useful to learn more about her, not a thing can be done to help her and her family now. All for which we can hold hope is that we can learn from what happened and use that to try to prevent it from happening to some other family in some other city.
And, whatever we learn, I am positive that what happened was not just about being denied food stamps. It was about something that began/happened, or did not begin or happen, much earlier. It is about a breakdown, a failure in the System. It is about of things to which we had better begin acknowledging and for which we take serious action. It is about resources being inappropriately wasted and not being available for those truly in need, even if turns out that the woman in this situation was not failed by anyone or any agency. In fact, I guarantee it.
CBS News
Mom denied food stamps shoots kids, kills self
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57337766/mom-denied-food-stamps-shoots-kids-kills-self/
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