That for which I am thankful

Well, yesterday I had the day off but I was too busy not having Thanksgiving to write a Thanksgiving post, so I shall do it a day late.

At various times during college I spent time with the homeless and noticed an often common thread which ran among them is that they did not have a social network, they did not have a safety net made up of friendly arms to fall into when they had fallen lowest. They did not have any lights left on for them or loving faces who would welcome them in, even if and when their own faces were filled with shame or their pockets were empty. I know I not only have family who would (and has) taken me in when I need a place to stay, but also that I have friends in many places who would (and have) take me in as well. I know I not only have people who would take me in, but also have so many people who love me enough that they would come looking for me, if I began to “fall through the cracks.” So to those who love me, family, camp friends, college friends, AmeriCorps friends, and random friends I have gained along the way, thank you for your love and I am thankful for you.

I am thankful for my parents. Who encourage me and pray for me. Who manage, somehow, to stay supportive of me and what I do, even though I have no idea what I'm doing and have a long way to go before I have it all figured out.

I am thankful I live with my brother and near my sister and brother-in-law. Also, that I have another sister, brother-in-law, and nieces who, I am sure, would like for me to live near them, as well.

I am thankful I have a brother, who, though he is younger than me, is willing to let me “mooch” off of him while I have been looking for a job. I am thankful that he is pretty easy to live with and that, from books and tv to hiking, we have common interests.

I am thankful for my job...even if it is just part-time and not really what I want to do.

I am thankful for hot water; for warming showers; good smelling soap; the ability to feel temperature and so many other things. I am happy I am able to smell Fall, baking banana bread, and Arnold Promise Witch Hazel (and other flowers, too). I am thankful I can see Autumn and its changing colors; hear the wind rustling the leaves outside my apartment and the music playing on the internet. I appreciate the leftovers I will be able to taste tomorrow and that I can sample things while I'm cooking.

I am thankful for books, libraries, the great outdoors, cozy blankets, entertaining movies, and photography.

I am thankful for the possibility to rekindle friendships and for the ability to make new ones. Along this vein, I am most thankful for our ability to make friendships, to form bonds, and to love.

I am thankful for my imagination, for intuition, for dreams, and hopes, and prayers. I am thankful for my potential and that God is not through with me yet. I am thankful for the Grand Love Story we are all caught up in and that the plot is so complex and simple that we have no idea why things happen the way they do. I am thankful I will one Day be able to read the Story in its entirety so I will understand.

Though I am sometimes tired, frustrated, and confused; I am thankful I am alive.

In the same vein as “Zombies Attack America” I bring you: Lights, Camera...Cue the Alien Invasion

I have decided Hollywood and the movie industry is actually a ploy developed by aliens or zombie-creating biological terrorists aimed at causing us to view any spectacular videos we watch with a “Man, those are some good special effects” mentality. Think about it, if you were a see a high quality video or even a few videos claiming to be authentic, which were about an alien invasion going on or a zombie apocalypse happening, wouldn't your first thought be, “What movie is this from?” or “Wow! Those special effects are amazing!” Even if the video was submitted by someone you knew or was on the News, wouldn't your first inclination be skepticism instead of belief?

In this day and age, when even most cell phones have good video quality, you would think some UFO videos and Bigfoot sightings would be clearer and of better video quality. I think why this isn't the case is because we find the grainy footage more intriguing and, perhaps, more believable. If it was an excellent video of either thing, we would think of Bigfoot, “That is a great costume” and of the UFO, “I wonder how much money and CGI it took to make it look that real.”

So when I post a video of the Alien Invasion or the Zombie Apocalypse you better believe it. I have a pretty crappy camera, so maybe you'll be more likely to believe.

On another note, while on the topic of aliens. Around Halloween the thought occurred to me that American Halloween (I'm unsure any other parts of the world dress up as much as we do) was initiated by aliens so one night a year they can add a few cheap additions to their anatomy (to make them not quite so awesome or believable) and have free reign to study us in close proximity in our natural habitats. Aliens, if you are reading this, do not judge us by that one night. When we humans don masked we feel freer to be idiots, jerks, and are more apt to break the law.

Propaganda: Rising to New Heights

Note: this post contains a slight in-direct spoiler having to do with the Hunger Games, for those of you who may care about such things.

I suppose the idea for this post occurred to me the first time while I was reading The Hunger Games over a year ago. You see, the government in the books made a mistake maintaining their tyranny. The time period when the books take place is supposed to be sometime in the future. If this is the case, then instead of showing the same footage year after year of District 13's state of decay after (nuclear?) weapons destroyed it, they should have used CGI and special effects to make “new footage” which showed its continued state of desolation.

Backing up some, if you haven't read The Hunger Games, in that world, there was an uprising of District 13 and the use of weapons left the landscape desolate and, as the government would have the other Districts believe, totally destroyed and without inhabitants. They maintained this lie by showing the same footage year after year taken of the area soon after the conflict took place, when it truly did look desolate.

If I remember correctly, the government in the movie V For Vendetta used false news coverage, painting the rest of the world as a place where there was constant famine, plagues, riots, and other horrors of the night. If the rest of the world is that chaotic and terrifying, maybe my government isn't that bad, they may be repressive and seemingly unjust, but they keep me safe.

In this day of technology and “movie magic,” as long as you can keep your populace isolated, give them no access to unauthorized and undoctored news sources, and regulate the technology which they have available (so they don't know about CGI and other special effects), you can paint the rest of the world whatever way you wish. You wouldn't even have to produce anything new, but rather could cut clips from any well-made movie you wanted. You could have the rest of the world be filled with aliens, zombies, riots, explosions, barren landscapes, crumbling and devoid of people.

You may be thinking, people wouldn't really believe that stuff, they would have to know it was fake. Well, here's something to keep in mind, in the 90's my family lived in a developing country and we would have movie nights with some of the university students. Sometimes we would have a fairly hard time convincing the students that the special effects weren't real, that those things didn't really happen. These were smart people, university students, but they had never been exposed to such things. When you've grown up believing what you see and have no reason not to, it can take some getting used to when this is no longer always true. These were people just watching movies, who were being told the things they saw were just for entertainment, and yet they still, at first, had a hard time believing that they were not real. Now imagine the same situation, except it is news sources only showing clips, and the government is confirming what was shown was true.

Also, even as skeptic Americans, we can't really poke fun at such a situation, as proved by the fact that after Animal Planet aired their program Mermaids: The Body Found, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration felt they needed to issue an official statement denying the existence of mermaids because so many mistakenly thought a video contained in the program was authentic.

I Am Still or The Story of A Boulder

The world moves around me at a breakneck pace and they wonder why they so quickly pass away. I am still and I remain. Trees think they are still, they say “I am rooted to this spot. I am not moving, so I am still.” Trees are flighty things, here today and gone tomorrow. They are not still, but move with the slightest wind. Their roots crawl over the ground and burrow beneath. Trees try to move me, try to lift me with their roots or, with their last effort as they fall, try to push me aside. Even the little plants do their best, breaking pieces off of me, thinking to count that as movement, but once those pieces separate, they are no longer me, but pebbles, rocks, and earth. Trees and plants rot and fall away, but I am still and I remain.

The sun rises and, as the wind blows the branches of the trees, it filters down to warm me. It moves so fast, I wonder that it has been there so long and if one day it will not rise. Oh well, warm or cold, it matters not to me. Whether the sun rises or it does not, I am still and I remain.

I can feel the moon giving me a gentle tug as it passes over me, silly moon, you cannot move me. But as the rain falls, the raindrops whisper that the moon moves the ocean, something far larger than I. Then they tell me they were a part of the ocean and that it is made up of millions of them, rising and falling, rising and falling. I tell them the ocean is not larger than me, but it is made up of millions of them and that is why it allows the moon to move it. The raindrops only laugh at me and tell me that though they are small, they will move me. They move me ever so slightly and movement equals death, their washing the earth from beneath my feet makes me older, they make me smaller year by year. I move, but oh so slowly, so I remain.

Turtles come to seek my wisdom and learn how not to pass away. They try to look like me, but they must eat so they must move; they do but slowly, so time passes by them and forgets them for a while.

Man does not seek my wisdom, but runs through life and wishes everything to run with him. He adds acid to the rain making me smaller all the faster. Instead of going round us, if we are in his way, he does what the trees could not do and pushes us aside. He causes us to move and move, breaks us smaller so we are easier to move, and moves us from place to place. I am not still and so only dust remains.

The Future is Now! or Where's my hover car, jet pack, and standard issue laser gun?

I'm 28 years old and I can remember when I was little basically being promised by “them” (the media, popular science, etc.) that hovercrafts, jet packs, and laser guns would be a common thing in the year 2000 or soon after. The year 2000 (if you didn't think the world was going to end) was The Future, you know, like in the Jetsons; but I'm still wanting for my hover car and there's no robot to do my chores.

Yes, I don't have those things and the prototypes that do exist are not very functional, but here are some things we may have forgotten and taken for granted. Some of the first computers weighed around 30 tons (that's 60,000 pounds!) and Popular Mechanics made the prediction in 1949 that they may someday weigh only 1.5 tons. Even science fiction, the genre which imagined up the jet pack, laser gun, and even more wondrous things, dreamed rather small (or more accurately big) when it came to how small a computer would be in the future. Isaac Asimov wrote a story first printed in 1953, entitled, Nobody There But - which was about two men who built computers. They were making a revolutionary small “calculator” which was “about three feet high, six feet long, and two feet deep.” The smallest Asimov dared his characters to dream of someday making the calculator was one that an “automobile” could carry. I remember reading another story that, even though it was based in the future, they were still using microfilm because, I guess, the author thought that would be the medium which replaced paper books.

Just a few years ago CDs were a pretty big deal. We thought the fact that they could carry, what, like 20 songs was pretty awesome. Now we have devices which are around an inch and a half wide and under a half inch thick that can hold around 4000 songs. Also, thanks to e-book readers, you can now hold thousands of books in your hands at one time.

Kids, I know the things I mentioned above may not seem like a big deal to you, but just imagine, a few years ago if you wanted to take music with you on a trip you had to take a bunch of CDs and if you wanted to take a bunch of books, well, your only option was to take paper books (which, I can tell you from experience, is quite heavy) .

As much as I wanted a hover car, I think these capabilities are even cooler. 

Can you think of any other ways in which we have gone beyond what was predicted as the future? Share in the comments. 

How to Correctly Respond to a Disaster

The most important thing is, be flexible and try to be patient. Disasters are, in all senses of the word, chaotic. In disaster relief circles, the first wave of volunteers is sometimes called “the disaster after the disaster” because before they even know where to put all the survivors, before they even have a plan to coordinate all the volunteers, there's thousands of volunteers ready to be put to work. Also, remember the recovery after a disaster can take years and sometimes when the community needs you most is actually a few months or even a year after a disaster, because most other potential volunteers are no longer interested.

Sometimes the best thing to do directly after a disaster is to make contact with an organization already there and figure out their biggest needs (generators, ice, basic first-aid supplies, or sometimes the biggest need is just money). I know it may seem boring or unfulfilling to just raise money, but keep in mind that the church or mosque or whatever probably didn't factor sheltering dozens of survivors or feeding volunteers into their budgets, so money may be the thing they need most. Also, by giving them money, they can then spend it in the local economy, an economy which was very disrupted and lost a lot of money because of the disaster.

Contact and coordinate your efforts with people/organizations already at the scene. It may be that most areas are still locked-down and no one is allowed in, so there's not much volunteers can do. Also, try and figure out if there are age restrictions, if minors need a guardian present or a written consent form from a guardian. Someone who is actually there can also give you the areas where volunteers are needed (doing actual clean-up, donations sorting, data entry, etc) and tell you what type of clothing to wear. Some volunteers who wanted to do clean-up in Joplin came without close-toed shoes and it was too much of a hazard to have them in the field, so they had to volunteer in areas that they didn't really want to. Also in Joplin, we had EMTs, Firefighters, etc. coming to our volunteer center and demanding to be a part of the search and rescue. They are pretty careful who they allow on those teams, so this is something you should try and work out beforehand (for instance, if you're a firefighter, then try to call the local fire department in that area). It is also important to bring your id, certification, license, etc. if you are wanting to volunteer is a specialized capacity.

Make sure to work out beforehand all of your logistics (place to stay, food/water, bedding). As a volunteer you have to keep in mind that, because there was a disaster, most of the local resources are rapidly being exhausted and if you come unprepared and ill-equipped you can actually be more of a burden than a help. I remember a few times when food was supposed to be provided in disaster areas, but tornadoes have a way of making street signs disappear and cause landmarks to not be in their proper place, so meeting points are missed or misunderstood. You will have a better experience as a volunteer if you are thoroughly prepared.

While on the subject of food, if you have a food truck, a huge grill, or another thing of that nature and want to help provide food for volunteers, keep in mind that you will probably have to work things out with the health department. We had many well-meaning individuals who came a long way to Joplin who wished to set up and provide food for survivors and volunteers, only to be shut down by the health department because they weren't where they were supposed to be, didn't ask for permission, etc.

When trying to figure out needs, whether for volunteers or donations, don't solely depend on the media for information, because they often get misinformation (sometimes from well-meaning individuals) and/or do not share the whole story. Or the media makes an announcement for a need and doesn't realize that some company was generous enough to fulfill the whole need, so then there is an excess of that one item. Sometimes the media isn't allowed access to areas where heavily involved individuals are (people who actually know what's going on), so they ask whoever they can talk to, which is sometimes a volunteer who has only been there an hour or survivor who hasn't left the area of the emergency shelter since they got there.

Lastly, and very importantly, try and figure out if the community is keeping track of volunteer hours and equipment used in volunteer efforts. You can normally find this out by contacting someone in city hall, possibly looking on the community's website, or sometimes the media will announce it. If FEMA declares a disaster then the federal government does a cost share (the local government pays a percentage and the federal government pays a percentage) for the disaster recovery. Volunteer hours and equipment used can be given a dollar amount and be counted towards the percentage the local government has to pay. In other words, as well as your volunteering physically helping recover the disaster area, it can help it financially recover as well.

Thank you for your willingness to volunteer and I hope you have a wonderful volunteer experience. Be safe, work hard, maybe have some fun, and create some fulfilling memories. God bless, may he give your hands strength and may he comfort the survivors.

The Dangers of Computational Dependency or TomTom and Seri: Downfall of Us All

This is another note along the same vein as the “zombies attack America.” Perhaps this will sound as if I am a conspiracy theorist, but I don't really think it is a conspiracy, rather, it is the natural course of things in the world we live in and there are those who may take advantage of that course. Alright, enough talking around what I wish to speak of.

Today, as I was driving in heavy traffic, I began to think how nice it would be to have one of those cars that practically drives itself. I saw an article in Time magazine or some such magazine about soon there will probably be a car which does completely drive itself. After thinking of driving, I also thought of how when people have a question now, instead of trying to remember the answer from things learned or even asking a friend for the answer, they ask their phone.

I recently watched a documentary, called Digital Nation, and in it a few educators who were interviewed said something along the lines of: children no longer need to be taught answers and facts because they now have access to all the answers at the touch of a button. I do think teaching styles should change over time, I do firmly believe in more than rote learning but, oh, can't you see that despite our phones, computers, an internet filled with information, and so many other modern things, our brains are still our best and most reliable resource? I know they more readily forget things, but they do not easily run out of power, they do not get out of range or hit a dead spot, and it is harder to tamper with them.

Now, if we were attacked by electromagnetic bombs (which can destroy electronic devices using high-powered microwaves) currently, we would be helpless in so many ways, but we could still drive old cars (“pre-computer cars”), because we have the skills to drive; many architects could still design a bridge, because they committed the skills they need to memory; a mechanic could fix a car because they learned how to, and not because they looks up a step by step video every time they do something. The more we commit to electronic memory, instead of committing it to our memory and using electronic merely as a “back-up,” the easier it is to render us helpless.

I was not planning on going in this direction, but my brain took me here, so off I go. Electronic memory and media is also more changeable and easier to change than “good old paper.” It saddens me and scares me a little that so many books, papers, magazines, etc. are moving purely toward the electronic. I can keep a paper copy of the Bible or history book or newspaper in my house and I would know if anyone were to tamper with it. Not only that, I can go to my friend and ask to compare my paper source to his, which, even if they were the same when they were made, are now mutually exclusive (if one changes, it does not effect the integrity of the other). Whereas millions of electronic copies can be linked to one source, can often be remotely accessed, and can be almost simultaneously changed. “Hey, didn't the ending of The Hunchback of Notre Dame used to be different?” “I'm not sure, but my e-book ends the same as yours, so I don't think so.” Just something else to think of.

Note: I am a little biased towards paper books, I like the way they feel and smell, I like that I can underline and, when a friend borrows the book, they can see my underlines. I also enjoy buying an old copy of something and seeing someone else's underlines. I have enjoyed reading a couple novels on a Kendall, and I do want to eventually get one to use when traveling, I also know e-books are better for the environment, but they are just not the same.