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Suddenly remembered that the last time I saw Odette Alcantara weeks before her death, she was bragging about her photo in a magazine with three naked men. She was, in fact, posing with three members of the Igorot tribe and of course drumming up her usual advocacies with them. What would Tita Odette have said about this deluge, I wonder? She would probably be asking us all to scrape all the fertile mud and scatter it where it will make a tree grow. Just like her ashes would help the trees we will plant in Tanay in a few days. That's what she did with all of us whose lives she touched. When our advocacies started feeling like mud, she would point out the benefits of the stuff to Mother Earth. Hmmm, I have to stop wishing a certain person and her ilk perform that benefit for the earth earlier rather than later. Have to think maybe some debts need to be paid first. :-)
My niece is gripped with fear. Alexis Tioseco who was shot dead with his girlfriend in his home was a friend of hers. Recently, a family and their one teenage son were stabbed to death in a Makati apartment, the son was her brother's schoolmate. Close to home meant she used to live a few blocks from the Makati apartment and would go to Sa Guijo. But it is much more than distance. These things happen every day but to "other" people. People who had enemies or who are engaged in nefarious activities, not these people. Suddenly, these people are us. It doesn't even have to be murder. That kid begging on the street could also have been us. Coping with fear means that we should make them us, reflect wisely, be mindful and engage in right livelihood.
We have the government we deserve. Unless citizens take up the cudgels for the public interest and watch government closely for each gripe they say, we will have leaders who do not account for our money and do not steward our resources for our best interest. Congressional PORK has a new level of transparency but so far only for 105 members. Proceso Alcala is of course all there. Dong Mendoza, Vicky Reyes are not yet transparent. Let us rally so that the next members of Congress in Batangas would submit their pork to this website for greater transparency!! Click on the scroll down menu and choose the name of your Representative in Congress. http://www.congress.gov.ph/pdaf/index.php And while you're at it, vote for HIGHER SIN TAXES here: http://www.congress.gov.ph/index.php
 When I started environmental work two decades ago, I was young and had goals and objectives in the "motherhood and babies" category. After running around the country training and putting out brushfires for several years, we started to hone our strategies to have longer lasting impact. It turns out the most long lasting impacts are those local to you, the ones you really put your mind to.Others invest in land and retirement. I invested time and persistence, which was all I had anyway, on creating long term management solutions for the ecosystems of my home province. It was many years ago when the first survey was done on Mt. Malarayat, when my father had his 70th birthday and wanted a charity to benefit in lieu of gifts. We were able to muster P150,000 which allowed us 24 hours of survey work that showed us the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but it was enough. . Scientists pointed out that it was similar in diversity to the current Southern Tagalog superstars Makiling and Banahaw. Several tree planting activities and monitoring of planted trees projects later, we are ready for another survey and we are funded for at least a year. A Management system for Mt. Malarayat is finally fertilized. Hopefully, the final result would be a clear ecosystem management system that will allow us to re-release in the wild any domesticated populations of Luzon bleeding heart (Gallicolumba luzonica) so birdwatchers in future can see them in the wild. And hopefully the tarictics will still be there and the wild boar population will thrive. We were luckier with Taal Lake, which found a donor early. A small amount from a Netherlands funder was enough to show we had the gumption to deliver much more. We assisted the DENR in re-organizing the PAMB, drafted Unified Rules and Regulations, enforced them, undertook a widely consultative Management Planning process and are now set to give birth to it. The Provincial government is also putting its best foot forward, calling in a tourism consultant, funding a big portion of the management planning and generally being very responsive. The Plan will be approved in December by the Protected Area Management Board and we are working on building a private sector initiative to ensure it will be implemented. Sitting at a hotel room in Sandakan, Sabah for one of my consultancies which allow me to be persistent about Batangas, I can see that even though sometimes it takes a while. the impossible still happens. These are bricks and mortar of nation-building - making local governments accountable, getting the private sector to pitch in, ensuring that institutional arrangements are responsive the needs. Now if only we can get a real leader in 2010.
How to Build Global Community • Think of no one as “them” • Don’t confuse your comfort with your safety • Talk to strangers • Imagine other cultures through their poetry and novels • Listen to music you don’t understand • Dance to it • Act locally • Notice the workings of power and privilege in your culture • Question consumption • Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up and smell the exploitation • Look for fair trade and union labels • Help build economies from the bottom up • Acquire few needs • Learn a second (or third) language • Visit people, places, and cultures – not tourist attractions • Learn people’s history • Re-define progress • Know physical and political geography • Play games from other cultures • Watch films with subtitles • Know your heritage • Honor everyone’s holidays • Look at the moon and imagine someone else, somewhere else, looking at it, too • Read the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights • Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water • Know where your bank banks • Never believe you have a right to anyone else’s resources • Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination • Question military/corporate connections • Don’t confuse money with wealth, or time with money • Have a pen/email pal • Honor indigenous cultures • Judge governance by how well it meets all people’s needs • Be skeptical about what you read • Eat adventurously • Enjoy vegetables, beans and grains in your diet • Choose curiosity over certainty • Know where your water comes from and where your wastes go • Pledge allegiance to the earth: question nationalism • "Think North, South, East and West, There are people everywhere."-- BL • Assume that many others share your dreams • Know that no one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this. • Get back in touch with and protect wild places. - ML Copied from Tools for Change catalogue from Syracuse Cultural Workers (SCW) Box 6367 Syracuse, NY 13217 (315) 474-1132 http://www.syrcultu ralworkers. org This is a listed version of the Philippine Greens' Manifesto and Society Ecology and Transformation.
 Today, the day we bury our reluctant leader, make a pledge today, to give up one thing, cut off one unsavory thing you do that holds back our nation in any way. Be it "tipping" for government service, or shaving on taxes, or littering the streets. Just choose one and stop. Everyone has one thing. First admit it, and stop. Today. Cancer spreads. We take our own out and the body politic may have a chance to survive. Today. If we miss this chance, it would get harder. She asked us all in her last interview to do something for our country if we haven't already done so. Allow me to paraphrase that -- no need to DO something, just refuse to continue one thing you are used to that is not good for our country. Everything worthwhile, like a great nation, requires collective sacrifice. The chain of sacrifices must begin. People are eager and ready to follow a new leader. But none have yet come forward. I think that new leader is waiting for a time when we show him or her we are worth not only dying for but we are worth leading. That we will come through for our leader and not just expect our leader to save us all. It is in our individual sacrifices, in shedding some of our comforts and putting our feet forward for the nation, that will show us who.
I suppose you never outgrow all of the rebellious streak you had when you were young. Even ensconced in the comfortable world of environmental work where everyone wants the same thing, but argue on how to get there, I am a deviant. I never got on the bandwagon of "sustainable development". It's against natural principles to expect material development in a finite world, no matter how you define it. We are born, we live, we die. As with all of God's other creatures. Only the non-material aspects develop but only if society is able to pass it on -- intellect, pride of country, discipline, hope. Slowly, I got leary of IEC programs. Nearly all planning exercises would include IEC, just as it is expected that all research recommendations include more research. You can't really measure what you gain from IEC except your own good feeling, and that may even have nothing whatsoever to do with the resulting behavior of the target of your IEC. These days, the object of my ire is alternative livelihood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, before you take away a livelihood someone shouldn't have engaged in to begin with, you have to give him something else. What sacred text is that written on? Did they do that to drug offenders? Sex offenders? Why are nature offenders, those that decimate resources so generations in the future have no more to survive on, supposed to be entitled to an "alternative"? And how can anyone expect an alternative to be continuously engaged in if it earns a small fraction of the illegal activity stopped? And why do enforcers insist on pulling their punches untilthey can give alternative livelihood that would be abandoned anyway once the patrols stop? The Batangueños went through war, famine, pestilence on their coffee plants and they went out and sold blankets and thrived. When an illegal livelihood is taken away, there is always a gap that aches to be filled, a livelihood that arises out of what was taken away. People and government just have to find it and enforcement cannot wait until it is found.
 A breathtaking collection of pictures of birds of our forests, most not found anywhere else in the world. And I think it's high time you paid the Museum of the Filipino People -- YOUR MUSEUM a visit.Open Wednesdays to Sundays. Student - P30 Senior - P80 Regular - P100 Fees on Sundays are waived but not all exhibit halls are open.
 FAMILY IS EVERYTHING Peg Luna My mother always said, “Family is everything.” We experienced the true meaning of those words in the mid 1990’s when our eldest son Vin needed a kidney transplant. Vin had developed juvenile diabetes at the age of five, and it was this chronic long-term illness that led to the need for his transplant. Both Vin and the rest of us in the family had to learn how to adjust to the many limitations the disease presented. For years, our two healthy sons had watched their brother meet and conquer one challenge after another. When Vin reached his teen years, he developed many of the complications associated with diabetes: hypertension, neuropathy, and partial blindness. As our family grew in maturity, Vin’s two brothers, Mike and Tony, pursued their education and career choices. Mike relocated to California, and Tony to Pennsylvania. In 1991 at the age of twenty-five, Vin was admitted to Saint Francis Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey, the hospital where his dad Vic, a physician, and I, a nurse, had met prior to our marriage. Vin had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and kidney failure with end-stage renal disease. He needed to have dialysis in order to live. Following intense processing of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual issues, Vin consented to hemodialysis for a period of three years, followed by a gentler form of dialysis called peritoneal dialysis for two years. During these critical years, my mother, the boys’ grandmother—and the woman who was quoted in the opening paragraph—lost her fourteen month battle with lung cancer, and died on May 12, 1995. Our son Mike returned from California for his grandmother’s funeral and to be with his family, and remained to pursue educational endeavors. During this time period, Vin experienced the life-threatening complication, peritonitis, which prevented him from continuing his present method of dialysis. When Mike visited his brother in the hospital, he was overwhelmed with an intense sadness and compassion when he saw how his elder brother was struggling to stay alive. It was at that moment that Mike offered one of his own kidneys to his brother. Vin’s dad, his younger brother, Tony, and I had not been considered sufficient matches to be transplant donors. But Mike was a perfect six out of six match. It would be Mike who would give Vin his second chance at life! And it would be Tony—the youngest family member—who would minister to our family, where every important issue concerning life and death would be confronted, discussed, and resolved among all family members and the hospital Transplant Team before the gift of life could be given. Then, on July 11, 1996, at Newark Beth Israel Hospital, Mike re-birthed his brother and his family into life. Vin no longer depended upon a machine to live. Today, Vin is alive and well and resides in Oklahoma. He is a self-employed web-master, and strives to assist people and animals in need. Mike has returned to California where he is responsible for college residential life counseling issues, and Tony has married his college sweetheart Anne. Tony and Anne have presented us with two grandchildren: Luke Aedan in 2005 and Olivia Rose in 2007. The Rose part of Olivia Rose is named for my mother, the woman in this memoir who once said, “Family is everything.” We all remain close. This was written by my aunt Peg Luna in December 2008. I had chaired the reunion of our big family, the Aguila clan in April 2008 and compiled all the photos and articles submitted by everyone. I contracted final lay-outing to someone else and when I sent the final souvenir programme to the family, they sent a message that I had left Vinnie out!!! I was horrified and rushed to look at the final product. It was true. I do not know how it happened but somehow, whether it was in the insertion or the final lay out, the photo was cropped and I didn't catch it. I tearfully sent an email apology which they graciously acknowledged but I know I messed up real bad. Last year, Vinnie created a website about a dog park in Tulsa and he made it to the news. The photo on the right below was taken this April 2009. Yesterday, with his family around him, Vin passed away. Our emails and calls to his family will probably ease the burden just a tiny bit, but despite only seeing each other only twice or thrice in our lives, we want Vinnie to know he has a large family here and that now he can visit more often. We will have a memorial to welcome him home on Saturday afternoon at our house in Lipa. His Mom sent us the story below so we know he is now in God's country. Vin, we may not have known you well, but the Luna's will gather and celebrate your life. And we may not look like Marisa Tomei but we will hold hands and celebrate you, OUR COUSIN VINNIE. You are no longer half a world away but here. GOLDEN PHONE IN CHURCHES A man in Topeka , Kansas decided to write a book about churches around the world. He started by flying to San Francisco and started working east from there. Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and making notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was intrigued with a sign, which read 'Calls: $10,000 a minute' Seeking out the pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The pastor answered that this golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to heaven and if he pays the price he can talk directly to GOD. The man thanked the pastor and continued on his way. As he continued to visit churches in Paris , France , Cairo , Egypt , Hong Kong in China , and around the World , he found more phones, with the same sign, and the same answer from each pastor. Finally, he arrived in Philippines, upon entering a church ln Manila, Philippines, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, behold - he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read 'Calls: 35 cents.' Fascinated, he asked to talk to the Priest, 'Father Ricardo Baumberger, I have been in cities all across the world and in each church I have found this golden telephone and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to GOD, but in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads only 35 cents a call. Why?' I love this part..... The priest, smiling benignly, replied, 'Son, you're in the Philippines now ....... You're in God's Country, It's a local call.'
Narito ang titik ng isa sa sandakot na kanta ng mga peministang nagustuhan ko. Bakit sunod-sunod na nagkamatayan ang mga taong ito na nag-ambag sa kung sino ako ngayon? Tila baga nagpapa-alala na maikli ang buhay at hindi na makapaghihintay ang mga bagay na dapat nang gawin ngayon. === lampasan mo ang guhit ng mahugis na balat, ang titig kong dagat-- yumayapos nang mahigpit sa bawat saglit ng kahapon ko't bukas. Kung ibig mo akong makilala sunduin mo ako sa himlayang dilim at sa madlang pagsukol ng inunang hilahil, ibangon ako at saka palayain. Isang pag-ibig na lipos ng lingap, tahanang malaya sa pangamba at sumbat may suhay ng tuwa't ang kaluwalhati'y walang takda-- ialay mo lahat ito sa akin kung mahal mo ako't ibig kilalanin. Kung ibig mo akong kilalanin, sisirin mo ako hanggang buto, liparin mo ako hanggang utak, umilanlang ka hanggang kaluluwa-- hubad ako roon: mula ulo hanggang paa.
In honor of Brother Ceci Hojilla who died of a heart attack today. His wake will be at the NSDC at La Salle Greenhills starting tonight. Mass of the resurrection on Thursday, June 25 at 9AM Looked for an image and found this one from his own multiply account http://broceci.multiply.comand realized he will live forever. The account even said he was online NOW. Guess there's wifi in NSDC.  Wrote this for our batch reunion (I left La Salle Lipa after first year high but stayed in touch with the batch and contributed this piece to the reunion publication in December 07). May his tribe increase! == StreetwalkerThe inimitable street-walker Carlos Celdran, in his closed leather flip-flops, old-style barong Tagalog and chilling accounts of war atrocities told during his guided walks around the walled city of Intramuros and other Manila landmarks may have taken inspiration from a La Salle brother. Although not dressed in period attire and walking only the innocuous City of Lipa, Brother Ceci was equally knowledgeable, probably funnier and best of all for us 12 year-olds in 1978, free!! Brother Ceci led us through the City we all grew up in and gave us new eyes. I remember the day vividly as we walked what my parents then still called Calle Real. I would associate Calle Real with the monument of Claro Recto standing in the triangular spot where the main street and the street towards Lodlod meet, as if standing sentry to the health center right behind it. The appellation Calle Real has grown to disuse among my generation even then, but then again it was a much older name than Highway 54 or Dewey Boulevard. It was across that monument, near where Hotel Gregorio now stands, where in his soft Ilonggo twang amidst our teenage Batangueño chatter, he started us on a short morning's journey that made us proud of our familiar City. He did not only guide us through space, but also through time. For that day, he showed us his wonderment about the Cathedral and the town planning history that surrounded it. He taught us why the cemetery was where it was and how the affluent lived then, not in gated subdivisions but near where people congregated on Sundays - so they could look out their balconies and watch the parade of churchgoers in their finery, maybe chat with them as they passed. He had us mull the old houses still standing in our City that never caught our attention before. One of those very houses with grand balconies right across Infant Jesus Hospital may soon be history, so I do urge you to take a second look. He told us about the railroad running through the back of our school and its role in the story of our region. Some of us never returned the awe he made us borrow and wring our hands to this day that our city planners never learned the lessons he taught us in grade school. I do hope he knows that his time in Lipa with us yielded a lot more than kids who could brag about their City. What he gave us was a never ending curiosity, a desire to look at the familiar and ask why. And I do believe even for those who could not remember that day, we all carry that curiosity with us, the same curiosity that has brought each of us where we are today. Some of us are giving back, with Des teaching, Nina and Joel in the Arts and Culture Council, Me- an helping special kids become useful citizens. Now if only we can get that curiosity to work for us again to figure out where to build bike paths around Lipa, invent a way to store away waste material so we wouldn't need an expensive landfill, supplement electricity in the city with renewable energy to replace noisy tricycles with electric ones, we will really have a community to be proud of.
 Once in a rare while, in this country where leaders have disappointed more than inspired, where we've been sold down the drain by the people we have trusted to make our country great, we see a bright and shining light.Governor Grace Padaca was a radio reporter, familiar with the Isabela beat, interviewing both the NPA and the military, the powers that be in her province that logging made. She didn't think she could win against a long running Dynasty, but she did. She started on a campaign against illegal logging in 2004. It was hard work and she could hardly find people she could trust to strike at the heart of the industry that was routinely violating the law. A well sought after speaker and MAgsaysay awardee, she never fails to raise hopes by speaking the plain truth. In 2005, she spoke at Arroceros and read an extract from R. Zulueta da Costa’s poem “Like the molave” : “Not yet, Rizal, not yet. Sleep not in peace: She could easily have given up. Certainly, she has already carved a niche in Philippine politics that has not been muddied by any hint of wrongdoing. But she still found her resolve when the planets aligned. Today, she is getting the help of the police, the military and some sectors of civil society and she has turned into a rampaging bull, applying for search warrants and executing them herself, taking helicopter rides to see just how her province is being devastated by those stealing this country's natural resources from the people and lining their own pockets with them. She is merely enforcing the law, she says, as if her actions were not heroic. She is putting to shame every other macho Governor with full use of their legs who cannot even stop illegal logging in their own provinces where the enemies are not quite as big and powerful as those in hers. I literally cried during her speech at the Environmental Justice Forum in Baguio when she spoke about her campaign. Over five hundred people rose to their feet when she calmly and without a hint of arrogance said "with my two polio stricken legs, I will stand my ground". The Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park has been the recipient of conservation funding for decades. Several projects set up here tried to work on conservation, but what was really needed was the strong arm of the law. Now, the projects have virtually dried up. Other than small livelihood initiatives, Isabela is on its own. But it is finally striking a blow and seriously threatening to wipe out the industry that has lined a few pockets but stolen from the Filipino people and the world, not to mention from the very residents of this lush but highly threatened mountain range - the Isabela Oriole, the Philippine Eagles and wild boar, more kinds of trees in one square kilometer than in all of Canada or Europe and of course, the Dumagat population. And it is not just the stolen wood recovered, but the carbon sequestration of forests that would be left standing because of her, the biodiversity impacts, the hydrologic benefits. We have much to thank her for. One can even hardly call her a politician. Never to be seen grandstanding, she would push her crutches forward and merely state what she is doing, what just and right duty she is executing, hoping that the truth will get her the public support she needs without the bells and whistles that usually jangle in other politician's wakes. Governor Grace Padaca, most of all, thank you for the hope.
 In the last two weeks, Isabela raids: Latest San Mariano figures: 44,079 pieces of common hardwood species amounting to 871,893 board feet (at abt P25/bd foot). If you haven't done so yet, send them a pat on the back at save_nsierramadre@yahoo.com. Let's hope this kind of dedication does not stop until Northern Sierra Madre has had a breath and regenerated for the next generation.
  These photos were used to apply for a Search Warrant for this property which used to be owned by Sanafe Sawmill. Owner Roberto Mingming was arrested and brought for inquest proceeding June 5, Friday morning. The team estimates around 250,000 to 300,000 board feet of wood here. The real stockpile is still at the back where the cameras could not reach.
  At Brgy. Minanga, San Mariano, Isabela, 139,920 board feet of sewn illegal timber of various dipterocarp species were confiscated by the Provincial Task Force. The owner, a certain Noli Blanco, surrendered the lumber. Blanco signed a waiver in the presence of Mayor Go of San Mariano and voluntarily surrendered the wood. The Provincial Task Force then began loading it into the trucks to bring to the Provincial Capitol.
 Amidst the maddening hoopla about Mancao, H1N1 and Chacha, Isabela Governor Grace Padaca quietly applied for and served two search warrants against two big time players in Isabela's logging game. Two large stashes of undocumented lumber from Luzon's most important forests - the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park amounting to 700,000 board feet of high grade lumber were confiscated. One of the big time loggers was arrested and the other is in hiding. And it is not over. More actions are expected in the weeks to come. The campaign began around this time last year, when Governor Padaca sought help from a number of sectors on her campaign. I-Witness did a full feature documentary and many sectors applauded but actual support was still not forthcoming. More recently, the campaign has accelerated from a mere checkpoint to really finding the main players. But the escalation is happening out of the glare of media due to myriad other political stories closer to the center, not to mention the voyeuristic ones. There is no other way but to do it through grassroots networks and let media realize that it's snowballing without them. Webcast CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES FOR Magsaysay Awardee GOV. GRACE PADACA, AFP's Major General Nestor Ochoa (5th Infantry Division), PNP's Police SSupt Jimmy Rivera, Tanggol Kalikasan's Jay Lim and Asis Perez for one of the largest illegal logging confiscations in our history within a 5 day period. The total haul was nearly 700,000 bd feet and this time, it's the big fish on the hook. Media should sit up and notice, good news doesn't come often. This alignment of the planets should be taken full advantage of as it might not happen again. Governor Grace has chosen a very good time and a dream team. Isabela has a new bishop, Bishop Joseph Nacua, a new Provincial Director of the PNP appointed in March 09, a new AFP District Commander appointed in January 09. NOW is the time to act. NSMNP will not have another chance like this. National and international support are sorely needed. If this escapes attention, they will be sitting ducks. Let us do an internet EDSA and let them know even from our desktops, we are there and will make an infernal ruckus if something ever happens to these heroes.
When we started this work on changing people's minds about the environment, it was like pulling teeth. It was a world of changes that we needed, most of them drastic and people were just too comfortable to care. Earthday was a single affair in only one part of town and no one was talking about alternative fuels. Today, Earthday is celebrated in many parts of the metropolis and attracts large crowds, including the youth. Local governments are getting in on the act, endorsing Earth Hour. The DILG has issued a Memorandum making climate change a principal subject of learning for local governments and they are falling all over themselves trying to craft environment codes. It is now time to separate thee chaff from the grain. Without being judgmental and self-righteous, we need to push the envelope and move all these initiatives of government from lip service to real change. More important than the actual ordinances is a process of crafting them that takes into consideration what the status of the resource base is, how the people interact with it and what would be the best way to reach consensus on the laws that would regulate behaviors that affect the resource. Now there are those that help this process of radical change along and those that merely ride it. They would seem to be saying the same thing but the impacts of their words are entirely different. The law dean of UP was one of the pioneers of social justice both when in law school and as a young teacher there. He was quoted by the papers today comparing the ease and effects of Cha-cha that would allow foreign ownership of land and CARP which would democratize ownership. The ones that only ride it changes minds but not actions. They preach love of earth but cannot connect it to people and how they behave and how they reason, thereby making converts only in mind and in fad but not in behavior change. Livelihoods need to be abandoned, industries that provide cushy lives would need to be reinvented so greenwashing and ignoring the needs of the poor just would not wash. There are champions among us in powerful positions who can move things forward and challenge all who turned off their lights on earth day to start an awakening not just to tweak the way we live but to get reborn into a new world order. The milk teeth have been pulled. We are now more ready to accept that we have gone a path in our societies and our lives that cannot lead to perpetual growth or happiness. It is now a little easier to conduct a conversation about the earth and the things we have to do to save ourselves. We now have to mobilize our champions to assist the birth of the new teeth to grow in their places and when they do, keep brushing.
Among the range of human activities that constitute responses to problems, one of the most irritating, unproductive and relationship-damaging is the laying of blame. When bad things happen, why is it that one of the reflex actions of people is to find someone else to pin the blame on? Russel Ewing once said " “A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting." This behavior does not seem to be the subject of much psychological research. There is, however, a society called the Scapegoat Society which is concerned with the dynamics of attributing blame to others - the core of scapegoating and demonizing. Hubert Humphreys was quoted to have said “We believe that to err is human. To blame it on someone else is politics.” In politics, it is easy to apportion blame and it is often not seen as necessary to prove it. When it happens in families, however, it is particularly problematic. Bad things happen to families and blaming each other, while it is presumablyl meant to ease pain, merely adds to the grief all around. A tragedy is already grief by itself and doesn't need any fingerpointing to make it worse. Empathy is an emotion that seems to be in short supply among people all to ready to put blame on others. When I read an article about parents to accidentally leave their kids in a car seat at the back of a car on a hot day in a parking lot, causing the children's death, i was horrified. The article went on to say that these people are frequently demonized, getting phone calls from strangers calling them all sorts of names. The analysis in the article is that at certain times, even the most organized among us go on auto[pilot, when our complicated brains which sit on a mass of primitive wiring takes a break and the wiring temporarily takes over. I do not consider myself a neglectful mother but can empathize with all those people upon whom this horrific fate has befallen. Families who stay together after these terrible happenings have found a way out of the blame and into the more welcoming emotion of empathy. The following quote from Wayne Dwyer is very "Landmark Education": “All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thingblame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.” | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
There are a thousand waters to be spanned;