LIVING OUT LOUD--November 2010

LIVING OUT LOUD--November 2010

LIVING OUT LOUD--November 2010

This is a blog about a life (mine) that is really largely uneventful but for me quite satisfying, or as Shakespeare once so aptly wrote, "a poor thing but mine own". I plan to give the bare bones outline of the days, the weeks etc. of my daily experiences with pertinent ( I hope) comments. Why would I want to do this? I suppose, because I can!

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November 2010

Who can think of November without thinking of Thanksgiving and everything that it means to all of us. Each year we gather to share traditions and delicious food with family and friends and to remember our historic heritage of freedom, courage and gratitude. Let us always cherish these values and teach them to those who will come after us so that future generations will continue to respect and guard them.

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In October we witnessed a disastrous environmental accident in Hungary. A poisonous chemical red sludge spilled over from damaged containers and covered three villages with toxic waste. It killed 9 people and injured 120 others and left many people homeless. It killed all marine life in a tributary of the Danube River. The long lasting effects of these poisons has not yet been determined. This is another indication that private companies such as the Hungarian Aluminum Production Company and also companies like BP Oil Company (which was responsible for our own recent gulf oil spill) can never be trusted to protect the public from environmental dangers. Government ultimately must monitor them and take responsibility for keeping all citizens safe. All of us in democratic countries also have the duty to diligently watch both our private industries and our governments to make sure that they are fulfilling their responsibilities to us. If we fail to watch carefully then ultimately we ourselves will be to blame for future disasters which without adequate vigilance will certainly occur.

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I recently saw another interesting movie "Invictus" directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It is a movie about the interaction of the South African rugby team and Nelson Mandela just after he became president of South Africa. Featured in the story is a poem from which Nelson Mandela drew his courage when he was imprisoned for 27 years. The poem is "Invictus" which was written in 1875 by the 25 year old English poet William Ernest Henley who was in the hospital at that time getting his leg amputated. He wrote the poem to bolster his own courage so that he might be able to face his difficult future without despair. It is very inspiring to realize that Nelson Mandela used this same poem 100 years later to reinforce his own courage at a most difficult time in his own life.

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The world recently saw an outstanding example of personal courage by trapped miners and their rescuers when we all watched the rescue of 33 miners in Chile. I hope that the example of these men and their rescuers will encourage all of us to work harder to ensure that no miner ever has to go down in a mine that is not been thoroughly checked to make sure that it has no safety violations. Unfortunately, even as the Chilean miners were being rescued there have been more mine collapses in Ecuador and China with more miners dead and missing. I hope that this outstanding rescue in Chile will inspire all of us to insist that all countries immediately begin to implement mandatory mine safety everywhere.

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I will be back again soon writing more about "Living Out Loud", to try to understand and illuminate not only daily living but also some of the complicated world issues that effect not only my life, but all of our lives.

http://adifferentvoice.net/

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