https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gaza-relief-5-keys-campaign/x/9535018

I would like to ask that you please support this cause in whatever way you can, be it a monetary donation or featuring it on your Facebook, Twitter, and any blog you might have.
The people of Gaza are suffering greatly and these young volunteers are attempting to alleviate that. They need our support!
Thank you, America! Love to you, from the lake....

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/op-ed/op-ed-lift-blockade-gaza

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/op-ed/op-ed-lift-blockade-gaza



A worthwhile read!

Doctors Without Borders has been in Gaza for some twenty years.

The blockade is preventing building materials from entering the Strip. Humanitarian aid only goes so far, when you cannot rebuild homes, hospitals and schools. The drastic lack of clean water and electricity is also an ongoing issue.

This situation is not the result of some natural disaster. This is a completely man-made catastrophe. And if you are American, this has been done with your tax dollar. You should be outraged!

END AID TO ISRAEL!

A Heartfelt Letter to My Government

Do you ever wish that you could have an hour or two of your own private time to talk directly with your leaders?
I do-quite often. I want it to be real though, the way a heart to heart discussion should be. No suits and ties, no written agenda, nothing so formal as all that. I want this meeting to be by a campfire near a quiet lake. While we enjoyed a late supper of grilled burgers, chips, baked beans and Iowa sweet corn, I could explain where I am coming from, you know?
It would go a long way toward improving our political discourse in this country if politicians would stop addressing us and give us an honest chance to address them! You and I both know, however, that Barack Obama is not going to meet with me. He is certainly not coming out to the lake, although missing the sweet corn is his sad loss.
I believe it is more prudent then to simply post an open letter here, not only to the President but to all 535 members of Congress, as well. Mind you, this is a rough draft but it goes something like this:

Dear Mr. President and distinguished members of Congress,
I had every intention of inviting you to my campsite by the lake. I thought supper and a marshmallow roast could only get us off on the right foot. I realize, however, that your schedules are busy(mostly raising campaign funds) and that a Secret Service entourage of that size would require more hookers than have ever worked in the state of Iowa. God forbid, they might even want to form a union!
So, this is the next best thing-a letter telling you how more than a few of my fellow Americans and myself are feeling about certain issues.
First of all, we think you HAVE "issues"! Let's look at the "war on terror", for example. This term, coined by the Bush administration(along with "bring it on") has become outdated, even in light of the recent bombings in Boston. It is overused. The fact of the matter is that while we acknowledge there are those who might wish us harm, we are not "terrified". On 9/11, millions of women were experiencing PMS but we did not declare a war on it! I feel  the same way about pimples.
Terror, on the other hand, got its own war. You began with the Patriot Act and since then, this "war" has been never ending and it has cost millions overseas their lives, not to mention thousands of our own dead and wounded soldiers. That has been largely ignored by you, though three deaths in Boston made you even call in the U.S. military to capture/kill two people.
Speaking of the military, someone must have forgotten to tell you. Pay attention! Sadam is dead! Iraq has been reduced to rubble. Afghanistan is controlled by drug dealing war lords, as has been the case for a very long time. You have changed nothing for the better there. Last I heard, Bin Laden had not snorkeled to the surface yet. Most importantly, Americans(who have any brains) are no longer afraid! Who's terrified name are you fighting this war in? It seems to me that it is time to bring our troops home. NOW! Suicides currently outnumber combat deaths among these soldiers. That is not acceptable.
You can also tell the TSA they no longer need to grope the breasts and diaper covered crotches of ninety year old ladies in wheelchairs. Just keep the knives and box cutters off the planes, huh? Oh-and that fellow in the turban really does not freak us out, either. More people have complained lately about mothers breastfeeding their babies at the airport than about the Muslims praying there!
At this point, Allen West and Peter King would like to jump up and argue with me about the threat of "radical Islam" to national security. You gentlemen(and I use that term loosely) need to Google the Christian Identity Movement and then we can talk about radicals.
Now, about our bloated defense budget, what the hell are you thinking?? We spend more money on "defense" (which is actually offense) than over 200 other nations COMBINED every year! You are all jittery about China building one aircraft carrier when we have eleven of them! You want us to believe that Iran is about to destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon, when Israel has hundreds of them-not that they will admit it or allow them to be inspected. We have not imposed sanctions on THEM, now have we?? What about our OWN five thousand warheads? We, the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon on a populated city-two of them, actually- have no room to talk. North Korea has tried and failed numerous times to launch a long range missile. They fall in to the ocean every damn time! They are not too scary, either.
Think of how many homeless veterans could be housed, how many children we could bring up out of poverty, the roads and schools we could repair, the jobs we could create, if we cut that defense budget in half! Maybe "sequester" is a term we would not be hearing now.
Maybe you need to also rethink that annual package of aid you give to Israel. You KNOW what they are doing with it and you KNOW that violates our own laws about arms sales.
For the icing on the cake, do you think you could get the FBI to quit spying on Americans, especially MUSLIM Americans?? Much money could be saved there too-obviously, Boston proves the spy game is not keeping us safe, anyway. The CIA blacksites have to go,too. I know you all enjoy the show "24" and how it helps you live with the fact that you are torturing people. But torture is wrong, immoral, and sinful. You guys love to say "God bless America", yet fail to realize that these are children of that same God, which you are torturing and killing. Shame on you!
I could go on but I think that is enough for you to chew on at this point. It is just plain common sense and down home values that drive most of us-could you give it a try for a change? I heard that even Dick Cheney has a heart now-nothing is impossible.

Signing off from the lake....

A Woman in America

What Does Gaza Need?

I have a friend in the Gaza Strip who wants to start a way to provide aid to children there.
Several aid agencies operate there already. However, they cannot provide for everyone-the poverty is so great! The political system is also complicated. Add to that the blockade that Israel has imposed and getting anything to these needy children is a challenge, indeed!
The Gaza Strip is approximately twenty-five miles long and five miles wide. One and a half million people live in this very small strip of land;it is considered the most densely populated area on earth.
Unemployment stands at well over 40%. The local economy has been decimated under the Israeli blockade. Available medical care is minimal. Food such as meat is well out of the range of most household budgets. The drinking water has been deemed unsafe for human consumption by the International Red Cross. In other words, would you want to live there?
Half of the population of the Gaza Strip is under the age of eighteen. How are these children to be provided for? And why should you care?
I will tell you why you should.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of unrest in the Middle East. It has become far less about who is a Jew and who is an Arab and far more about the denial of basic human rights. This is what the Western media refuses to report and address in a meaningful way.
In talking with my friend there, I began to think of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
One begins to see a huge problem when looking at this. If the most basic needs of food, water and shelter are not being adequately met, how does one ever reach security? Or self-actualization? Or healthy self-esteem and healthy relationships? You don't.
That is a problem because these children are the future leaders and negotiators in this conflict. If peace is ever to come between Israelis and Palestinians, both sides must come from what I would call "solid ground". The people of Gaza do not have this at all. By way of the blockade and constant military action against them by the Israeli regime, there is no way for them to have security or even have their basic needs met without outside intervention.
I include in the problem the governments of the Arab countries surrounding them. Egypt has helped to continue the blockade. The very wealthy Saudi royal family does little to help. Other Arab states turn deaf ears to the cries of the Palestinians. It is obscene!
Is it any wonder that Hamas has gained the hold it has over the people in Gaza? After all, they are the only ones who even appear to care. You don't bite the hand that is feeding your child. However, that hand has a somewhat insane agenda of its own.
So, when my friend suggested a way to positively impact the lives of children in Gaza, I jumped at the chance to be a part of that. We will see what we can develop. We will start with Maslow. We will begin with the basics and work our way out from there. I am hopeful we can do something positive-stay tuned!

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

New Flavors and Family

Our newest family member, Houcine, is cooking lunch for us today, a Moroccan dish. I am not sure of all his secret ingredients, but I know he is using fresh rosemary, Turkish bay leaves and other herbs, as well as onion and tomato. Put all of it together with, sirloin steak and peas, and it smells like a piece of heaven!

Having a fairly devout Muslim in the family has been interesting. We eat beef hot dogs now, for one! Houcine eats a good amount of bread, which has suited me fine, though not suited my waistline. I do love bread, though!
He has his own semi-private room. Remember, we live in a two bedroom apartment with a six year old, and my two teenage sons visit on weekends. It is a little crowded and noisy at times, but Houcine takes it in stride.

I have noticed something about most Muslims-they are incredibly patient people. Now, I say "Muslims" as if I were not one, because I have not been very good at it. I converted from Christianity to Islam in September of 2010. I have not, however, been devout. This is probably why I am not among the patient ones! Those who are born in to this faith, or convert to it with all their heart and soul, have a peace about them that I sometimes envy. That is truly what drew me toward it in the first place. But, I have always struggled with spiritual matters and organized religion, specifically. I have never seemed able to fit any mold I tried, always the square peg in the round hole.

That being said, what I have learned is that every faith has something good to offer us. I still rely very much on the teachings of Jesus/Isa(peace be upon him), those I learned all my life in the traditional Four Gospels. I have tried to live my life by the Ten Commandments, handed down to Moses/Moussa(pbuh). I am still trying to learn more about the prophet Muhammad(pbuh) but what I know of his teachings has confirmed what the previous prophets taught.

There is, especially in the West, a wariness about Muslims. The attacks of 9/11 seemed to grip us with a fear of an entire religion, based on the rantings of a few unstable people. That is truly unfortunate, for I have found that if we look at any religion, we find a handful of these characters within each of them. If you are not sure about that, I will be providing several links for you to check out. They may shock you, but they are more than reliable.

My husband and I were having a discussion a few days ago about world population growth. It is mind boggling to think that in just the last eighty years, it has gone from two billion to seven billion people! If the current rate of growth continues, our planet will have over fifteen billion people on it by the end of this century. The total carrying capacity of the earth is only a little over twelve billion. Carrying capacity refers to how many people can actually survive on a planet, given its resources.

One has to step back a moment and think, why do we fight over something such as religion, when we are slowly(or maybe quickly) driving ourselves to the brink of extinction? Do we honestly have the luxury of using resources to make weapons of war and hate? I do not believe so. My opinion is that we all better  learn to savor new flavors, enjoy one another as family members and in doing so, we may survive.

As always, from America, you have all my love....

Resources:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report  (Southern Poverty Law Center)

http://www.religioustolerance.org/cr_ident.htm  (Religious Tolerance)

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-racist-entity-that-is-taking-over-israel-must-be-toppled-1.345929  (Regarding, "The King's Torah")

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/  (Veterans For Peace Homepage)

An Accidental Journey, Part Two

I did say a couple of days ago, that I was going to let you know how Magdi has been. As you will recall in Part One, I said that Magdi had told me about Egypt's troubled political environment, long before the revolution there. Corruption and cronyism were the rule of the day in the Mubarak regime. A state of emergency had lasted for decades, in order for this dictator to hold power and he enforced  that with his military and security police.
When I first began to talk with Magdi, a group of young activists called 6 April had been planning protests against the government, demanding the state of emergency be lifted and elections held.
Magdi was attempting to help them organize, mainly through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Mind you, that kind of activity could get a person in deep trouble with the government. Of course, this was news to me! All I knew of the politics there was that Egypt and Israel had a peace treaty. I am actually old enough to remember that piece of history forged by Carter, Sadat, and Begin. What I was clueless about was the internal state of Egypt. With a rapidly growing population and rampant corruption, the economy was suffering terribly and unemployment was very high. But, if one tried to affect political change, he could look forward to being arrested, with a lengthy jail sentence resulting, complete with torture. I will simply say that Magdi was more than a little familiar with this.
As these members of 6 April, most of them university students, began to hold their protests, I would ask every Sunday for my church to pray for them. I asked them to pray for Magdi, and anyone else working on behalf of human rights. I would then follow the reports in the Middle East news media, as here in the U.S., no one was paying attention. Student protesters were routinely beaten and arrested by the security police at these gatherings, though they were unarmed and demonstrating peacefully.
Because of all this, when the "Arab Spring" erupted in Tunisia and quickly spread to Egypt, I was not all that surprised, and  in fact, I was delighted! Many people in America were baffled and crying that "Islamic extremism" was taking over in the region. Now, with part of the seats in the new parliament occupied by the formerly outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, hysteria about all of this has only increased in the West. We tend to forget how messy America's own revolution was, and the fact that the British most certainly thought us nothing but a rag tag bunch of armed extremists.
As for Magdi, he continues to struggle to make positive changes happen in Egypt. He was beaten last year by the police in a particularly bad incident, detained, and his cell phone confiscated to get rid of the video he had captured on it. Yet, as soon as his stitches had healed, he was back in Tahrir Square for another round. So it goes with my brother! I worry for his safety much of the time, but I am proud of him, as well. We are not able to chat  nearly as often as we used to. Even more rarely, we talk on the phone( he got a new one!). The situation in Egypt continues to be fluid and not really stable at this point. Some there have expressed to me that they are very frustrated. I remind them, though, how long America fought and then, how long it took to draft a working Constitution. Another full year went by after that before we had a Bill of Rights. So, I tend to be patient as I watch this play out and I still think there is great cause for hope. I believe Magdi sees it, too.
I smile as I write this, remembering something he said to me once. I always loved to tease him-it's a "sister thing". One day, I was hinting around,( not so subtly) asking if he had a lady friend waiting in the wings. He has never married. He said no, and we laughed. Then he said "I am married to Egypt".
It was a bitter sweet moment. I had mentioned more than once that I thought he should make a new life in America some day. He would say "maybe" or that he would "love to visit". But, on this day, there it was, in all its brutal yet tender honesty. He had a wife, or at least a mistress, keeping him there. Now, I knew her name and it was obvious he was going to love her, nurture and defend her, and never leave her. Yes, she is called Egypt, and her middle name is Freedom.

An Accidental Journey

I met a man two years ago, quite by accident. No, not my husband; I met him very deliberately over two decades ago! That is a story for another day.
The fellow I met in the spring of 2010 was floating around in the virtual world of Facebook. Surfing various pages one evening, I met him on a comment thread. His name, along with his profile picture, made me suspect he was an Arab, though he had a very good command of English.
As it turned out, he was Egyptian, well educated, articulate-and a Muslim. I had never met an Arab or a Muslim in my life. Now, in a post 9/11 America, it seemed possibly unwise.
"Well, it's okay", I thought to myself. "I'm liberal and tolerant. I'm sure he's just fine...probably." I sent  him a friend request and he accepted.
The next morning, I turned on my computer and went to Facebook. Almost immediately, this man popped up in my chat window, saying "Hi!"
I froze for a few seconds. My mouth dropped open, my pulse quickened and I realized I was not breathing.
"Think!" I said to myself. "Think fast!" I typed "Hi", took a gulp of coffee, lit a cigarette and waited. Just like that, he replied, "How are you?"
A voice in my head shouted, "Oh God! Oh my! An Arab Muslim wants to know how I am!" Visions of a terrorist training camp flashed through my mind. "I'm fine" was my carefully crafted response.
As we got through the initial introductions, I realized I was being very silly. Why would a terrorist want to contact a forty-something Iowa housewife? I live in a nice state but it is hardly a target rich environment.
I certainly have no inside information of any useful kind. I can't even program my TV remote!
Relaxing a bit, I sat back and enjoyed chatting with my new friend, on that day and for many afterward. In the months that followed, I learned a great deal from him. As knowledgeable as I thought I was about world affairs, I soon figured out that I was ignorant of many things.
Magdi had a very good understanding of Christianity. I, however,  knew nothing about Islam.
Magdi knew much about America and our people and culture. I knew Egypt had pyramids, and maybe camels.
Magdi told me about the happenings in Egypt, the Mubarak government and its corruption, and the stirrings of a revolution, long before the Arab Spring erupted on my TV screen.
There was one more thing Magdi told me, something that ended up profoundly changing my life. He told me about a people called the "Palestinians".
I had known of them throughout my life-Arafat and the PLO, radical terrorists, always attacking Israel. As they say in the South, "That's how I heard it."
Well, bless this patient man, Magdi. He began to connect me to credible, well respected sources of information, many of them human rights organizations. I read reports and documents. I went to alternative news sources instead of relying solely on CNN. I was being led on a journey that I had no idea I would be taking.
What I found outraged me. It was shocking, and to me, shameful.
In all my life, no one had ever told me there was a "Nakba". I did not know Israel has six hundred checkpoints throughout the Occupied Territories, nor that the people of Gaza live under a militarily enforced blockade. I did not realize that Israel had killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in military actions against Gaza and in southern Lebanon. Honestly, I was floored! And I cried...and cried.
Thus began my education in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Magdi started it, others have continued it, and I am now committed to it, dedicated to trying to help the Palestinian people find peace, with justice.
No group of people has ever affected me quite like them. I have had the pleasure of getting to know many, via friendships on the internet. They are intelligent, politically engaged, resourceful, resilient and strong. I have developed a love and respect for them that two years ago would have seemed insane to me. But, that was before Magdi.

Note: In Part Two of this post, I will let you know how Magdi is doing now, since the revolution, and perhaps I will introduce you to some of my friends in Palestine. If you keep an open mind and are willing to hold my hand, I can take you on a journey that will leave you forever changed.

All my love, from America...