My Home... My Heart... My Neverending Question...Why Hath Thy Forsaken Detroit?

                               "Beautiful" - My Beautiful Detroit, My Home...
I hear on the news day after day about my home, they talk about her like some distant land that our country cares nothing about, because there is nothing in it for them... They forget that the progress of our country was literally "Forged" on her beautiful back.  From industry, cars, music, sports, arts, and my heart...

Hollywood has always to my disgust, portrayed Detroit as a city you go to war to be on vacation from(Three Kings)...or fire and mayhem(Mars Attacks)... and on and on.  I am a Detroiter, and I'm damned proud of it!  I was born in Detroit and lived the majority of my adult life in her arms.  I went to College at CCS behind the breathtakingly beautiful Detroit Institute of Arts, all my childhood, every Christmas, my pictures with Santa at Hudson's.  I spent my middle school years downtown at Trapper's Alley, Greektown, and the Renaissance Center in awe of the beautifully crafted two person paper dragon kites.

I went to her Dally in the Alleys...her Taste Fests...her Brew Ha-Has...her Blues Festivals in Heart Plaza, and George Clinton's free concerts at Cheyenne Park.  I spent the boat races on blankets on Belle Isle and wandered her beautiful Arboretum, and drove slowly through the night while the deer walked up to your car.

I spent many nights at Rock 'n Bowl at the Magic Stick and saw Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker at the Majestic...home grown bands at the Old Miami.  I wandered her streets and marveled at her exquisite architecture, from the Book Tower Building's fresco ceiling to the Incredible Courthouse...and yes, I walked!

From child to young adulthood, I hardly ever missed a home game at TIGER STADIUM, where in 1984 we won the World Series(one of my good friend's step-father was Kirk Gibson). Going to the Red Wings games at the Joe Louis Arena, my cousin being a HUGE fan got a signed stick from my "Uncle Vic" who was a bartender at the Olympia Room forever...I remember our back to back Stanley's and the HUGE Parade on our 1st win, every street was full of people walking with our kids, friends, and families, the Pistons "Dream Team" or "Bad Boys" whichever you chose(Isiah Thomas, John Salley, Dennis "The Worm" Rodman and Adrian Dantley).

She still lives, she still breathes, she still has Detroiter's, she still has us!   Families who built futures from the sweat, work, and resilience that was her.  I am the granddaughter of a Polish immigrant who was raised in a Catholic orphanage during the depression to become one of the catalysts behind the birth of the UAW(representation for worker's safety, for wages worked, health care and security for a family if the husband was injured on the job) and voted in to be Chief Union Steward of the Chrysler Mound Plant, worked as the Tool Room Supervisor and eventually one of the Plant Electricians.  This great man, who came with nothing, had nothing, became the model of the American dream.  He build his own home for his wife and two daughters and sent them both to college.  In Detroit, the city he loved...in America, the greatest country in the world, he felt...where anything is possible.  For both of those reasons, I'm glad he's gone and not here to see his city, his hard work and livelihood crushed...and his city, my city, our city...used as a synonym for CRAP.

With just what I have listed here, which is nothing compared to what she has contributed to this country, I ask...Oh why have we forsaken her?

Our Duty to Ourselves and Our Brothers and Sisters

Tomorrow represents one of the greatest responsibilities we have as people of this nation.  Is also a privilege we have that other countries of the world do not have.  As a woman, I know that it is a precarious thing for me... people will tell you that when the Constitution says man it's just symantics and women are also included, do not fall for that tired lie.  When it comes to government and law, there is no such thing as symantics.  Women are not covered by the Constitution, we have State by State legislation.  If we were covered under the Constitution they could not legislate our bodies, our insurance coverage, etc.  You don't ever hear discussions about not covering vasectomies, or cutting out prostate exams.  So ladies and the men who love them, remember WE have to work together to make a change in this country.  I'm tired of the status quo, that's just not good enough, we've been asleep at the wheel to long and let our liberties slip out of our hands.  We are now a nation that can ask, "Let me see your papers"!  Is that what we want?  I know that if we vote and if we shout with a UNITED voice, "We want jobs, equal pay for equal work, fair and impartial immigration laws, and a MIDDLE CLASS"!!! Government will have no choice but to listen. 
Let your voices be heard.... I'm a 47%-er and I Matter!!!

Love with a Passion...

I think my last post had a negative tone, almost scolding... I realized that a few days ago.  I've been going through more than just my painful physical deficits, my rescue cat, a sweet old girl passed away... my eleven year old dog is all of a sudden been afflicted with excruciating hip pain, stomach issues, and skin wounds due to his licking his hips and legs thinking that will help.  I haven't slept a full night in at least two weeks and have an energy crisis.  I'm immersed in fear at loss... I've lost so many I've loved, to death, to ego, to I don't know what.  I found that I was reaching and grabbing not only to hard, but squeezing and with a negative tone and energy that isn't conducive to dialog, open or otherwise.
I want to apologize for my tone and my bad energy, believe me when I say that it wasn't out of anything but the desperation to be connected to someone and to have love in all it's forms in my life.  I live a life alone, which would be alright if I had friends(close by).  I live a life without kindness, or contact.  I live a life of utter solitude, if it weren't for my animals I would have no contact of any kind.  Losing Ingrid and now my Zion my sweet dog, one I've had for eleven years, since he was a baby is in constant pain...something I'd hoped we'd never share.  So, I suppose I put it onto you to fill that void... and not kindly.  I am sorry for my tone, and  my content.
However, I love with  a passion and am passionately trying to empassion others.  I listen to NPR and hear things like Senators saying things like, "I am going to make abortion illegal even in the event of rape, because God chose to have that child born."  How could anyone not have a gut, repellant reaction to something so horrifiying as that?  How could we not have some kind of dialog about the abhorant nature of the act of rape and to force a woman to carry and birth a product of something so unthinkable.  As a woman, I have been barraged with such enormous force during this election as to what our "true" place is in this country as it pertains to government and big business.  Women have not evolved in our society.  Even those of you who have been asleep and bought what you've been fed can no longer possibly deny the vast gorge between women's rights and men's.  The broad sweeping statements like, "...so that women can safely miss work to care for a sick child...." should shock and offend men and women alike.  What about the stay at home fathers or the single fathers or just plain ole' fathers?  As a single mother, I never missed a day of work, and because of being a single mother...a woman I wasn't paid as much as my male counterparts. How do I know?  I did the payroll amongst the various other responsibilities I was plied with that my male co-workers, who earned more than I, were not.  But, as I was saying, not only did I not miss work, I had to work two jobs and never was able to even use my vacation time. 
So, listening to where we really stand today, my hope is that there is a mass awakening in women....young, old, and in between, as well as men, all men...because you love the women in your life and can't imagine your daughter being violated, then either having to face a tribunal to determine whether or not she is allowed to have a "termination" or not even given a choice and at 15 or even 25, and forceably and legally made to carry to term and give birth to a child born of rape.  Rape, not being a physical and sexual assault....but a violation so horrific that it forever changes you.  It's as if a piece of your soul, your innermost, precious, sacred place has been stolen from.  It extinquishes a light and makes you feel as an asexual being, in fact worse, it makes you fear or even hate one of your most precious and sacred piece of yourself.  Your vagina, your womb, your lotus, the divine...the place of life, the place of the sacred feminine.  As a woman your vagina, your uterus, the womb means so many things and those are as unique and deeply personal as you and your mind; thoughts and feelings.  Yes, many of us heal and call ourselves survivors, and we are, we are no longer  the victim, but that sacredness that feeling of security and sanctity has been permanently damaged and can never be truly whole again.  Why do you think Bosnian women were subjected to rape camps and not just murdered as the men?  It's because of what I just described, death is death, but true torture and the breaking of the incredibly rock hard resilience of a woman's soul is accomplished only through rape or the murder/killing of the child born of choice of a woman.  With reprocussions of that nature to women, to demean the experience by defining it in the aforementioned legalese is just as grotesque as the process these politicians propose if they allow it at all.            
Now you see a portion of my passion and my desperation for connection, for dialog, and for community.  Please pardon the use of this ridiculous label, the world is starting to come to rest on the shoulders of our generation...Generation X.  If we don't start using all this technology for good purpose, dialog, community, connection, and a catalyst for change, peril is a charitable word for our future.
So again, I humbly ask you to subscribe, to connect, and to make this a revolutionary blog, a blog of humanity and discourse.  A place where we can unprogram phrases like, "different race"...and to put faces to ethnicities, minorities, and disabilities.  A place where we can talk real talk and brainstorm solutions that can realistically be implemented to show that programs, legislation, and more are workable and can be pushed into government with the force of a generation.
Please, help me change this country, our country, it's a mess and on a downward spiral...if you've agreed with nothing else I've written....I think we can all agree on that! 
I love you all, friend...stranger...accquaintance... you are all my brothers and sisters, because we bleed the same and we are hemmoraging.  Let's not put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound as been the case for so long, lets create a bond that nothing can tear, together.