Politics, Motherhood, and Politics

  The idealist in me is slowly dying; frankly, I am surprised it has lasted this long. At age 52, I am still naive enough that people, and yes, even politicians, act on well-intended goals, even if some are within the boundaries of self-interest. We should all act on the innate ability for self-preservation of the individual, family, community, and others. It’s especially disheartening when others only care about themselves, but what is a stab in the heart, is when those self-professing people who claim to care about community and the status of the world we live in, do not.  I no longer wish to help those who only seek notoriety, political power, money, and other self-means under the guise of helping the disenfranchised when they do not seem to possess the skills, empathy, intelligence, and sincerity to do so.  Most guilty of this are political figures. In our democracy (or representative republic for the uneducated swine, who manage to learn a new word by listening to so...

  Dear Mayor and City Council Members, First, I am writing for you to vote in favor of the Proclamation Declaring October 24, 2023, as United Nations Day.  Please do something right to show that Joliet is a world city. But the irony is not lost on me, as I saw an angry mob of "concerned citizens" spewing xenophobic and nationalistic hatred at last week's Joliet Township meeting. Mayor D'Arcy fed into the frenzied mob with the request that the Joliet Township Supervisor retract his application for the grant.  And to my disappointment, the crowd that bullied you all and the Township into submission won. I have lived in Joliet for 23 years.  I love this city, and I know almost every inch of it. Since the age of 19, I have been a human rights activist, both domestically and internationally, and to see my fellow citizens (supposedly) so hateful and falling for lies and bigoted about the humanitarian crisis was a shock to me. A city that prides itself on div...

It's been a while since I last wrote on this blog. I pay $12 a year to keep the domain name, so I really need to just write more. I have been busy trying to still change the world with like-minded people.  As many of you know, I have been involved in Amnesty International since the age of 19, officially a member since 2000. Human rights are my passion, and also being a mother.  My sons are now 15 and 16, becoming young people in their own right. The 15-year-old is a fighter, as I come to recognize. The 16 is a philosopher of sorts, very good in math.  I have hope for their future.  Unfortunately, the future of a lot of our young people looks bleak.  This is why I work with others to make the world better, the world I live in. The goal of any generation in any society is to make the world better for the next generations. Smug, it may seem, but that's my aim. I just need to read the news and it saddens and motivates me. Nationally and locally, our world is violent...