Sunday 13 May 2007

A Light of Hope for Madeleine

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A LIGHT FOR MADELEINE!

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On Thursday 3 May 2007, little Madeleine McCann from the UK was taken from her bedroom, from her parents and her family while on holiday in the Algarve. As a mother myself, I am not sure what I would have done if my child suddenly vanished. It must be the most awful feeling of desolation and impotence, with not knowing being the hardest part. My heart goes out to Kate and Gerry McCann. I hope they find the courage to keep hoping for her return. This candle is my personal tribute and prayer for Madeleine to be found safely.
Love and Faith conquer all.


This candle will burn in hope until Madeliene is returned to her family. May she be protected from all harm by the ocean of love and prayers that surrounds her. Please feel free to leave comments of support. Thank You.




Sunday 6 May 2007

Is it Time to Ditch the Old Ageist Mindset?

In an interview regarding getting older in the New York Times Magazine, Nora Ephron says, with obvious feeling, "Old age can be pitiful. That's why Americans tend to ignore it. First it was ignored. Then it was boosterized by all those people who wrote these stupid books about it. This insistence on the joy of aging, the joy of menopause, the joy of late-life sex — this is all garbage."

That was a real pity because there was no obvious counter interview for ageing put by the NYTM, so this one negative view appeared to speak for all women. Bearing in mind that many women fear ageing too, they would have been left even more depressed and downhearted by those comments. The real tragedy here is that many people look to Nora, a well established writer, for guidance and enlightenment. If there is no 'joy' of being older, what would she advise those who fear the process to do? End their life in midstream to avoid ageing?

I am not sure if the way we age is a cultural/race thing, but most of the Black people I know look fabulous at any age. I remember watching a programme on the BBC not long ago about the history of soul music. They were interviewing some of the soul stars of the 60s and I had to keep reminding myself that these amazing looking people, without a single wrinkle, would have been in their late 60s or 70s. They looked no older than mid-40s. Many of them would have disagreed with Nora that ageing had no joy attached to it, perhaps because ageing comes naturally to them. They don't fret about it!

I also spoke at a conference recently and most of the people there were over 50 and it was difficult to tell their ages. But there was one noticeable thing about all the delegates in the room. They had come to learn career, business and confidence tips for self-improvement and not one person cared about their age in a negative way. Most were boastful about how they looked for their age. These people could show Nora a thing or two about the real joys of ageing. It got me thinking about how we need to change our perception to really appreciate getting older.




Low Mortality Rate
Two hundred years ago, one was likely to die in mid-40s or early 50s. It meant that, from about 35 years old, you were considered as 'old' and expected to do 'old' things with your life, like being seen and not heard, especially if you were a woman. During the 20th century it was quietly assumed that one is young until 40, middle aged until 60 and 'old' after that. Since then we have had a revolution in technology, changing the direction and quality of our lives dramatically, but we are still stuck with the same old ageist mindset on getting older. The result is that employers, programme makers and media producers still fear ageing and treat it in outmoded terms, so much that 18 million people over 50 in the UK, the flower-power baby boomers who liberated their age in the 60s, are still waiting to be treated like their younger counterparts. We have shiny new technological tools working with old decrepit mindsets that should have been educated, along with technology, to expect the unexpected and to think outside the box. People are changing rapidly in their behaviour while many of the power brokers are still stuck back there judging others through their own fears.

I am 59 and I don't have even one wrinkle. I have a beautiful face, beautiful smooth skin and great legs – and I won't even mention my fantastic boobs, which many younger women would die for. I have never used anti-ageing anything. Everything about me is natural, no help from anywhere apart from plain moisturisers. I have never been to a hairdresser in my life as I don't like anyone else's hands doing my hair. I feel and look no less sexy than when I was in my 40s or 30s, with a trail of men, from all ages, trying to attract my attention . Yet I have no wish to be young again. I love the age I am and shout it from the rooftops. I believe that there is nothing more wonderful than having wisdom, experience and intellect along with all those other physical assets. An awesome combination. I boast daily that when I reach 60, 70 and beyond, I will still be as fabulous. There's a 77 year old woman on my MySpace page who does not look a day over 45! You can see the self confidence, sense of pride and wellbeing in her face - the key to getting older. She is clearly enjoying who she is. Nora Ephron, she certainly is not!

Ageing has been a joy for me throughout my life because I have NEVER thought of ageing in negative terms. I have always looked forward to my birthdays and enjoyed every one. I never look for wrinkles, I never worry about how 'old' I am getting. Instead, every day I remind myself that dead people don't age. So, if I am ageing, I am alive.....and hallelujah for that fantastic fact! What is the point of being alive only to tell yourself every day how horrible you look. Might as well end the torture by flagging down the next bus and getting under it!














The Power of Thoughts
For the uninformed, we age first in our heads and our bodies gladly oblige. So if we sit and stare at ourselves every day, bemoaning how OLD we look, that's precisely what we will have more of, because we cannot have positive things while thinking negatively. If we see age as 'garbage' and a joyless existence, that's precisely what we will enjoy. However, when we begin to appreciate our life, ourselves, and the people accompanying us on our journey, the world becomes a magical place and life is a true joy. In line with the effects of new technology on our lives, it is time we lose the old senile, fearful views on ageing.

Currently we have people living until 120+, with many thousands reaching 100 without too much fuss. It needs a new perception of the whole process. It means accepting that, with each new decade of good health and good living, people are going to live longer. As long as we keep using our brains and bodies they will serve us magnificently too. Time to acknowledge that a YOUNG person now is at least up to 45 years, a middle-ager is up to 70 and an older person anything after that, with the markers shifting constantly. Ten years from now, a really old person might be perceived as one who is 85 years and above because many people would be living to 115! Time to do away with limiting age numbers and let people prove themselves, at whatever age they are.

I have a theory I would love to prove because I believe that, from birth, we are brainwashed by society, the media and loved ones into negative expectations around ageing, which then become self-fulfilling prophecies. I would love to experiment with some people on an island where every newborn was told, daily, that they will live forever, and then see what happens. My guess is that, because they would have been told nothing else, they would have nothing to fear and their perception of ageing would be entirely different from ours. Positive ageing would become part of their belief system and they would live like ageless people, regardless of their actual mortality. They won't live forever, but they are likely to live a darn sight longer than the average person does now.

We never completely fulfil our potential till the day we die. It is time to stop using age as the sum of the individual; to stop writing a person off at any point in their life; to let them show us, through the quality of their existence, exactly what age they are. Then we will have freed ourselves from the tyranny of oppressive ageist numbers and really 'live' that precious life we're granted in every sense of the word.

Saturday 5 May 2007

Why it is Difficult to Earn RESPECT

From today, an 18 year old at the start of his adult life will be spending the next 25 years of it in prison in the UK for killing another man who he said paid him no 'respect'. Yet another Black youngster is behind bars, his freedom and potential dramatically cut short like the life of his victim. Bradley Tucker shot unarmed Peter Woodhams after Peter had already been knifed by someone in Tucker's hoodie gang. He lost his life trying to stand up to the bullies.

According to the judge, Bradley "perceived disrespect". He feared loss of face in a challenge that he perceived from the man he killed - a challenge to the standing he felt he had in the eyes of the people whose respect he sought. Gang members tend to talk about getting 'respect' from each other and others. They believe that the negative acts of wounding and killing should encourage even more 'respect' and save face. But they will always fail in getting the desired result because of a misunderstanding of the word respect and a lack of awareness of how it is acquired. Respect is a positive word. It has nothing to do with negativity or negative acts. So one cannot get respect through negative behaviour. One can probably get a temporary feeling of satisfaction and power, but no real respect. There are also six dimensions of the word respect.

At the heart of respect is sensitivity to others and their feelings. By demanding respect, or bullying others into showing it, that goes against the grain of earning that respect because there is no sensitivity. We are all automatically entitled to respect by virtue of being living, thinking human beings. Respect is thus automatic in the first instance for who we are and proclaim to be. However, maintaining that respect is the difficult bit because unless the six dimensions of respect are in place (curiosity, attention, dialogue, sensitivity, empowerment, healing), we are likely to withhold respect from that person and treat them with either contempt or disdain, especially through ignoring them or resisting their attempts to draw our attention or engage in dialogue.


Reasons for Joining Gangs
Most important, real respect begins from the self. If we have no respect for ourselves, we cannot expect it from others either. That would be a difficult thing to do. For example, someone being a murderer, yet expect to be treated as though he hasn't committed a crime, is contradictory. He is a criminal. Until there has been a successful rehabilitation for his action, he will always be perceived in a negative light and denied the respect he seeks.

People join gangs for a variety of reasons but the key one is to foster a sense of belonging, an essential part of the confidence triangle. Most gang members will be low in self-esteem and the stronger ones will have a craving for power. Not being able to use that power in positive ways in the wider world, they will use it negatively to feel better about themselves. In such groups, where the only glue holding members together is the desire to belong and feel wanted, the achievement they crave is likely to come in deviant acts to maintain that feeling of power and desire for 'respect'. Yet that is not the basis to earn respect because there is no self-respect already in place. Instead, members are likely to expect others to like what they reject - themselves. They will also be expecting others to condone negative acts which are likely to be part of their rituals and affirmation process. Yet those very acts merely serve to alienate the wider public and form a dubious base for their efforts to impress other members. In such a negative situation, how could Bradley expect to get the respect that he himself denied others?

Bradley Tucker is another tragic youngster who thinks he can earn respect by force through the maiming and killing of another person. But he lost respect for himself when he became a member of a deviant gang and began his reign of terror against his neighbourhood. He said he only meant to scare his victim. I am inclined to believe him. But what obviously got in the way when he pointed the gun at defenceless Peter Woodhams was that feeling of power again, the sudden realisation of the heady power to snuff out a man's life to prove a point, while momentarily forgetting that he was robbing himself of a life too.

Why Paris Hilton's Sentence is the Right One



Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 45 days in prison for violating her probation terms. She won't be able to choose her prison, there will be no work releases, electronic monitoring or any other concessions. Just a plain old jail with an hour outside her cell each day. Her mother thought the sentence was 'pathetic and disgusting' and her lawyer was 'shocked and surprised' by it. Why is that? What exactly did they expect when Paris kept breaking the law? Is she special in that regard?

If one disobeys the law one can expect retribution. What is the point of having laws which some people ignore or which only work with some types but not others? If the law is not applicable to all, can we expect it to work to society's benefit when we want it to do so? If we give no respect to the law we are actually condoning a lawless society and one dreads to think of the consequences of that. The law can only be effective if it is taken seriously, treated with respect and applied to everyone, whether rich or poor, high or low, famous or unknown. If those three elements are not in place, judges and lawyers might as well pack up and go home.

There are four reasons why this is a just sentence. First, Hilton was caught for alcohol-related reckless driving in 2006, and reckless driving costs lives. Simple and unequivocal. She could have killed someone in her state. She was given 36 months probation, $1500 in fines and mandatory alcohol education. All of which she accepted, especially reporting for enrolment in the education programme. Yet she never did enrol and, worse still, she took to driving again and was stopped twice by police when she was not even supposed to be in her car! She said she didn't know she was banned! Wow!


The Responsibilities of Being Celebrity
Second, Hilton is a celebrity role model, whether she acknowledges that or not. Millions of teens and other women across the world who look up to her would be watching, and even emulating, what she does. Flouting the law is not behaviour to inspire, or even reassure, such fans and followers, neither can she be allowed to disregard her probation by placing herself above it.

Third, for the law to work effectively, its application has to be consistent and perceived to be fair, no matter what the actual reality says. By ignoring whatever Hilton does in her case, a strong message of bias would be sent out to the general public regarding favoured people and their ability to ignore the law. The effect of that kind of action on others who are similarly sentenced would be disastrous, for upholding the law, for respect of it or instilling a sense of fairness in its jurisdiction. Worse of all, it would weaken the legitimacy of that law.

Finally, no one is above the law. Ignoring her actions would have encouraged others to do the same, especially when there are many people caught daily drinking and driving. How would such similar resistance by the public have been contained if it got out of hand? If a celebrity is going to behave as if a legal ruling doesn't apply to her then she must be prepared to take the consequences. One cannot flout the law then expect any mercy because the very act of doing as one pleases is to put one's self outside of its orbit. And if the law ceases to apply to our lives, what kind of state are we heading for?

At least one thing will come out of this. All those on similar probation who might be tempted to do the same will probably think again if they don't want to go to prison. Well done, Judge Sauer! Common sense is beginning to rule at last! There really should be no appeal to waste taxpayer's money any further.
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