2 posts tagged “youtube”

I didn't go on the cruise.  Please don't leave me any "Oh, I'm so sorry!" comments.  I don't mean that in a harsh way--I just mean that I didn't go because I was really anxious about flying with my ears still being kind of plugged up.  I've had horrible hay fever--the pollen is so thick right now that the cars are covered in it.  The artist's manager who'd handled my arrangements understood.  Told me he suffers from bad allergies, too, and has had a couple of flights where he thought his eardrums would explode upon descent.  They're finally starting to open up and I simply didn't want to mess with flights.  So don't cry for me, Argentina. ;)  I get the weekend to just...exhale...move to my own rhythms...have some space...  And all of it is much needed after feeling so stressed out the past few weeks. 

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On a separate note (and I haven't even told Jeffrey about this yet--he was gone most of yesterday and this morning we were focused on getting him packed and to the airport)...  By accident (via reading a link and then being reminded of someone and Googling him) I learned yesterday that one of my oldest, dearest friends died last summer.  I was devastated to read that news online.  I hadn't spoken to him in years, but he still pops up in my thoughts occasionally.  It gets worse.  What I also saw online was that four years before his death, he'd been beaten by two police officers in the town where he'd lived for decades.  (A very liberal, white university town...just like this one.)  He wasn't charged with a crime and when he took the city to court, he won a quarter million dollar lawsuit.  But his injuries had led to surgery and left him with a permanent limp.  I (obviously) had no idea that he'd been through all of that (we were off the mainland during that time).  It broke my heart to read about it.  I'd known him for 35 years.  He was my first love.  Imagine for a moment your first love.  Now imagine that person being dragged from their car and beaten by two people with metal clubs, all while the person stood there open-palmed--taking, not resisting, the blows. 

I'm sorry to be sharing such upsetting news, but it's been a helluva 24 hours.  Canceling my getaway...and then being utterly shocked and upset over that news.  I try not to talk too often on this blog about politics or issues or race--at least I try to bring them up less than I did at my previous blog.  But this is the reality I live in.  As I've said before, I'm supporting Barack Obama for President because I honestly believe he's the best candidate with the best character for this critical time for our nation.  I'm not voting for him because he's half-black.  But his race is an important part of who he is, and I personally haven't spoken to anyone who wasn't moved by the speech he gave on race on March 18th.  (If you didn't see it, I encourage you to join the more than 3-1/2 million people who've watched "A More Perfect Union" on YouTube here.)  Those of us who came of age in the early days of feminism (early 70's) have been seen to be disloyal to our sisterhood by not supporting Hillary Clinton.  Today The Root posted an extraordinary letter written by Alice Walker that so beautifully puts that into perspective.  I encourage you to read it here.

This morning, already weepy over missing my getaway with my sweetie and my heart aching over thinking of my dear friend being beaten, I watched this video from last May by slam poet Darian Dauchan..."Damn you, Barack Obama..."  (It includes profanity, but I think you can handle it.)  And I broke down.  This one's for you, A, wherever you are...

Don't worry--this isn't going to morph into a peace blog. ;)  (But would that really be so bad?)  Although I haven't been following the story as closely as I 'should' (in my own mind), I have been paying attention to what's been occurring in Burma this past week.

In a nutshell, Burmese Buddhist monks have begun a peaceful protest against the military regime which has thrown their country into poverty over the last four decades.  The movement is growing, and it's growing quickly.  Here's a BBC World story posted to YouTube two days ago:

And today 1,000 monks marched to the home of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1991) Aung San Suu Kyi.  Reuters is reporting that the monks were allowed to march past police barricades--she lives under house arrest--to reach her home where they prayed for/with her for 15 minutes.  The Reuters story says that she greeted  the monks at a gate.  If true, that is huge news since she's rarely seen.

A month ago, Jim Carrey posted this video to YouTube about Aung Sun Suu Kyi:

Here are the links he references in that video:  Human Rights Action Center and U.S. Campaign for Burma. 

People in Burma are starving because the military junta in their country is doing stuff like spending obscene amounts of money on their leader's daughter's wedding (story here).  Yet a woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize 16 years ago for her peaceful and non-violent struggle against that regime continues to live under house arrest--unable to see her children or even experience and witness her husband's final days.

Half a world away, my weekend is filled with sitting at gigs and sleeping in and lattes and browsing in bookstores and getting the car washed and reading novels and surfing the web and attending my niece's gymnastics meet and basically doing whatever the hell I want. The least I can do is to pay attention to what's going on there.  Yet I'd bet the farm that there aren't a lot of Americans tearing themselves away from their weekend recreational pursuits to do even that.  And that just seems wrong to me.