women empowerment – global warming – congress – POTUS
I am re-posting the 290 or so posts that got lost when my website called Writeindependent.org went away, along with the blog I kept from September 1, 2011 through election day, November 6, 2012.
I will try to do my best at organizing the blog in the same order it appeared, along with the date it was originally posted. I may be a month off for some of the posting dates, but the ones that fit into current events are mostly accurate to their original date.
The following post appeared on September 1, 2011:
One day, I went to a dry cleaner to drop off a pair of pants. It was an ecologically friendly dry cleaner, supposedly. Turns out, it was anything but friendly.
The owner of the shop asked what I was reading because I was holding a book.
The Organic Manifesto, I told him. Its written by Maria Rodale, who believes that carbon emissions can be cleaned up if we just switch our farming practices to organic.
The next thing the owner of the dry cleaning shop said stopped me dead in my tracks.
Its too late, he said.
He wanted to continue, but I didnt have the time to stay and find out what made him say such a horrible thing. In fact, if he had already given up, it didnt matter what he had to say next.
Part of me wanted to cry, and the other part of me wanted to go home and eat worms. If it was already too late, why do anything about anything? Why even try?
It was then that I decided I had to do something. If I just sat at home and let the world play out its unintended but usual course of events, then I deserved what I got. But if I stood up for what I believed in and used my voice, which is all any of us really have anyway, why then, I could maybe make a difference.
And what, exactly, do I believe?
I believe that even though people are a mixture of good decisions and bad impulses, of logic and reason and feelings, that deep down at our core, if each of us were asked Would you save the world if the choice were yours to make? that each of us would answer yes. Because if you say no, youre as good as dead.
I also believe that the United States is full of basically good and decent people, who are creative, spirited, and love their country.
I have traveled all over the world, and I have always been happy to come home. Though I enjoy traveling, learning about other cultures, and I appreciate people with other insights and styles, I still love coming home to the great United States. I have been proud to be an American, and want to regenerate that feeling by improving our lot.
Every generation generally wants the same thing for their kids: they want to leave the world a better place than how they found it. For the first time in history, we can be very afraid that it will definitely NOT be better or we can strive to MAKE it better. And I believe that we still want our children to inherit a better planet.