Thursday, May 15, 2008

HUMAN Rights!

I'm so tired - it was a long week, and a long trip home BUT I am most certainly NOT too tired to blog about human rights.

Think about it. Please! Do you have a license to drive? Do you have a fishing license? Do you have to have a license to have a child? Unfortunately no. Please consider the rights of the children in your life. Treat them with respect. Teach them boundaries. Show them unconditional love. Help them to grow up with tolerance and creativity and imagination and the ability to see a world without limits.

Be thankful you have a warm bed to sleep in, clean sheets, and running water to take a shower. Be thankful you live in a home with earthquake standards that were adhered to when built. There are countless dead after the natural disasters this week in the far east... countries in which human rights are an after thought. A clip earlier in the week said for every week that help could not go in to help the typhoon victims, they could multiply the factors by 15. The stench of bodies is so thick now, that the stench reaches the survivors (and few rescuers) noses before sighting the dead. How about the parents in China? The parents trying to find their children's bodies just to recover and bury. To grieve. What kind of rights exist there? Any?

Hug your loved ones. Kiss the ground you are standing on. As much as we argue in America and make fun of our governmental leaders, we are still so blessed to have the affinities in life we have, and the rights to believe what we want, and protest, and think differently.

Figure out what 1 thing you can do each day to make the world better for someone else. It can be as simple as making eye contact with someone and smiling genuinely. It can be as complex as buying someone a meal who hasn't had one in a while. Or even more... imagine... and then ACT.

Life is so short. Tell the people you love you love them. Take care of the people you know. Make something better. Contribute to the greater good. Offer up whatever you can to those who don't have all you have - even if all you have to offer are prayers.

5 comments:

Bradley said...

Your comments about the earthquakes connected with me. Every time I see the huge number of dead in some other countries I'm sickened. Frequently they are what we would consider just a minor bump in California.

My sister lives near the beach in Hawaii and marvels at how well their typhoon warning system is set up. I'm happy I live in a country where a system like that can be built, especially when you consider it's relatively low risk in Hawaii. But then in other countries where they are more prominent, they regularly count the dead.

Thank you for your nice post.

Parker said...

I respectfully dust off the soapbox and allow you to have it anytime you want to say anything you want.

Brava! Well said!

bigd Flanagan said...

Great post. Sometimes numbers boggle the mind. The more I think about it, and I in no way mean this in racial terms, lots of places in Asia flat out suck.

When the people of China and Burma mourn the loss of loved ones, their emotions are the absolute equivalent of ours. The argument that, "Life is just cheaper over there." What bullshit. A mother's tears are a mother's tears.

These governments exist to serve themselves, not their citizens. Ours is flawed but to that level? I think not!!

Appreciate our country and help those less fortunate. Is it any wonder people risk their lives to live here?

China just sucks in terms of their government. I think the USA should boycott the upcoming Olympics instead of lining the pockets of a brutally repressive regime. Your opinion please.....

Kimala said...

thank you guys for feeling as passionately as I do about all this. Knowing that there are an estimated 50,000 dead at least in China - and that most of the dead are from schools that collapsed just horrifies me. No child should be afraid to go to school.

I can't wait to go look at the Bloggers Unite site today and see what the results were of yesterday's efforts - I was simply too tired last night. However, I do know that bloggers are making an impact - they are influencing media in some way and if the media in this country is influenced - then you know that it must influence other areas as well.

Cheers to Friday!

Me said...

Every day the folks from Free Tibet march infront of my office.

And the one thing that I love..is that the march doesn't consist of JUST Tibetans..or just Asians.

Blacks, whites, asians, latinos..everyone's in line marching.

And I think..that if this type of unity could be EVERYWHERE..the world would be a different place. If we could sympathize with everyone..and..treat each other as FAMILY.

But it's 3 AM and I'm rambling..and kinda twitching.

But you love me anyway Kim, right ? Right ?