mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Double Down to Feed Our Neighbors
December 27, 2012
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- Tucson public art
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- art as border
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- Culture combination
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- SB1070
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- Hi E’rybody!
In Tucson we host a lot of transients, create crime/residual poverty, and our economy has depended on boom and bust construction. The present condition of our social safety net to protect our weakest is critical. Our Community Food Bank is now $400,000 underfunded for the year. The shelves are bare and the need increases daily. Last night on PBS Newshour I listed to philanthropy experts discuss the fiscal cliff fiasco and non profit businesses. Small donors are fewer this year because of both uncertainty and lack of extra funds for giving. The uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that non profits also receive 30% of all funding from government programs. They know that falling off the cliff will eliminate many non profit agencies by simply removing the government support. I take a very dim view of congress in the steam room while non profits fold.
A glimmer of hope in Tucson: “Hi e’rybody, I’m Jim Click.” A well known cowboy car dealer hero has stepped up with Sandy Peebles to double all the contributions made to the Community Food Bank from now until the end of the year. I usually take mine to a local lawyer’s office for doubling, but she was not offering the matching funds this year, so I am late. I am thrilled to see our wealthy business owners ride up on the white horses in the white hats to do the right thing. I always ask friends and neighbors to support the Food Bank of Southern AZ because they get the most bang for the buck. When you give a dollar to the Food Bank they use their leverage to buy $9 worth of food for those in need in Tucson. Some non profits have heavy staff and administrative costs, but the Food Bank is lean and clean. They recently won a grant to put gardens in the schools. Please follow me to the website and donate now while the need is great and your donation will be doubled. Let’s all help Jim dig a little deeper into his car bucks.
I also ask everyone to help me end fraudulent philanthropy. Criminals take advantage of the public by seeking donations for bogus entities. Please have some scrutiny and some consideration when you donate. The experts on PBS taught me that small donors usually do not write off their gifting on Federal income tax. That was surprising to me. Wealthy people strategically use giving to pay less in taxes. If you do not have an extra million to give, please make sure your donation is going to a legitimate non profit with an ethical goal. The gifts are needed by the legitimate non profits more than ever, and it is important to know what happens to your hard earned donation.
As Above, so Below-the Border
December 24, 2012
— 1 Comment
How irresistible is untaxed profit? So magnetic that a Border Patrol agent just was stupid enough to load a large shipment of dirt weed into to his migramobile for transport right next to the border recently. I live in Tucson, in the slipstream of untaxed profit provided by the border. It feels to me like the economy that transpires outside the law, under the table, is much greater than legal business in my state. We are so damn fast, furious, heavily armed, and racist that anything can and does happen. South of the border, down Mexico way, kingpins of crime created a much stronger economy than the local legal economy. They now have their own saint which is a sure sign that they are in control. The border itself offers them the risk reward system of illegal commerce that increases their power and wealth. Sure, they have guns (supplied by us), but they only enforce their special jurisdiction with guns. If they had no economy based on smuggling they would have no power in Mexico or the US, thus no need for a saint.
- The closer to the border, the higher the risk/reward.
- The closer to the border, the more violent the scene
- The closer to the border, the higher the pay for crime
- The closer to the border, the higher the bribes
At the border everything is exponentially magnified and all the cops are criminals, all the sinners saints. Stakes are high and the dominant criminal precedent has been set in place forever. Smuggling pays well, and pays law enforcement the highest salaries, one would imagine. The fence that was built to solve our bizzillion border issues has magnetized them. The pay is now higher to break laws at the border, and the violence much greater. Every pendejo who loves lawlessness is attracted to the Arizona/Sonora border. Why? It is simple. The pinche-punk criminals flock to both sides of the border because the border itself is pura pendejada. The migra doesn’t even have a saint. How pathetic is that?
Drugs, Guns, and Risk
December 22, 2012
— 2 Comments
If Mr. McMurphy doesn’t want to take his medication orally, I’m sure we can arrange that he can have it some other way. But I don’t think that he would like it.-Nurse Ratched
The shadow America does not want to face is our mental health system. Mental health treatment has been a barbaric system of emergency drug administration with no hope for cure. My parents could afford the best available when they needed help in their last years. The problem was finding any ethical and effective treatment for them. Everyone was ready to charge big bucks, but nobody had any real therapy (or even care) for the patient. They had unlimited access to all drugs, but no access to careful diagnosis or medical ethics. When I volunteered for the VA my Vet was long-term suicidal, and there was no available help for him either. I am sure there are some quality programs somewhere, but before going out and spending twice as much money giving people twice as many drugs, why not evaluate the efficacy of the treatments used now? I am going out on a limb and say our neighborhood system of mental health treatment is damaging to all concerned. Random pharmaceutical drug use is not healthy, mentally or physically.
In my neighborhood, here in central Tucson, where you can virtually buy drugs in the middle of the street and there is probably a weapons concierge who will bring a selection of guns to your house for purchase, a 6-year-old was found with a loaded gun in has backpack at school. His dad was arrested for an old felony charge so the kid who said he did not know how the gun got into his backpack is now probably a foster kid while his father serves time. This is the reality for the youth here, and they may or may not know how the gun got there, but they know it will not be the last gun they will see. This deep, sociological, complex problem will be resolved by government programs with an arsenal of pills. Is that, in any way, believable?
We also have a very large mental health center available to the public and funded by Medicare. It is close to a public bus stop with a convenience store on the corner. People from all over the city can come, buy enough alcohol to be over the limit, and be admitted for the night to the mental health clinic. If they are not at the limit, they simply walk back to the store and buy another pint of liquor. They will be given prescription drugs as a result of the entry to the clinic which they can sell right there in my neighborhood. The clinic is supposed to make sure that the patients leave the area, but of course there is no way to enforce that rule. So the patients are released to repeat the cycle. Spending twice as much money on this will create at least twice the insanity and grow creepy petty crime around here. It is a risk to continue to pretend we are treating mental illness or Vet suicide. Money spent on this denial while asking for more funding is running from the reality that systems profit from status quo, and not from change. We need fundamental change, comprehensive. Stopping the madness will involve stopping the flow of drugs as a substitute for therapy. This is a war on drugs worth fighting and well within our power.
John Bourchier Sears, Holland to Plymouth
December 22, 2012
— 2 Comments
Sears COA
My 11th Great grandfather was so totally kicked out of England:
JOHN BOURCHIER, so named after his father, “he married MARIE L. daughter of PHlLIP VAN EGMONDE, of that city, and acquired with her a large fortune, principally in money. With this he was enabled to purchase property in Essex, adjoining the lands which he hoped soon to recover as his lawful patrimony. Amongst the estates thus bought were Bourchier and Little Fordham Manors, both of which had in former times belonged to his ancestors. But his return to England was resisted by those who were deeply interested in keeping at a distance so formidable a claimant to many of their broad acres. Strenuous and energetic were the efforts JOHN BOURCHIER SEARS made to remove the obstacles which intervened to keep him in exile; but all to no purpose. His opponents were inexorably hostile, and even threatened him with a prosecution, as a participator in the gunpowder plot, if he ventured to set foot in England. The attainder, it must be remembered, which hung over his grandfather, had never been removed, and still impended over the family at the time of his death in 1629.”
He left two sons and two daughter, RICHARD, JOHN, MARIE, and JANE, the three latter settled in Kent; the eldest son
“worn out by his parents’ want of success to recover their English possessions, determined at his father’s death to quit England for ever. He accordingly took passage, with a party of Puritans, for New England in America, and landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts on the 8th of May, 1630. Here he became the founder of a family which has attained wealth and honours in the New World, and died in 1676, leaving behind him three sons, KNYVET, PAUL, and SYLAS. “In the year 1851, a descendant of this family, the Honourable DAVID SEARS, of Boston, visited Colchester in company with a friend, Mr. H. G. SOMERBY, of London, and inspected with much interest the monuments in St. Peter’s Church. With a view to perpetuate the recollection of the ties that attached his family to the town of Colchester, Mr. SEARS caused a brass tablet to be engraved, and obtained the permission of the late Vicar (the Rev. S. CARR), for its erection on the North wall of the Church.”
This brass is divided into three columns, with the copies of the memorials on either side. The central column is headed by a coat of arms bearing the mottoes “EXALTAT HUMILES” and “HONOR ET FIDES”. Beneath is repeated the motto “Exaltat humiles” and the following:
Worth is better than wealth, Goodness better than nobility, Excellence better than distinction. To their Pilgrim Fathers, a grateful posterity. The outer columns transcribe the following memorials: Sacred to the Memory of Richard Sears, son of John Bouchier Sears and Marie L. Van Egmont in lineal descent from Richard Sears of Colchester and Ann Bouchier Knyvet, England. he landed at Plymouth in 1630, Married Dorothy Thacher and died in Yarmouth in 1676. Sacred to the Memory of Knyvet Sears eldest son of Richard Sears of Yarmouth, born in 1635, married Elizabeth Dymoke and died in England in 1686. Sacred to the Memory of Paul Sears, second son of Richard Sears born in 1637, married Deborah Willard and died in Yarmouth in 1707. Sacred to the Memory of Sylas Sears, third son of Richard Sears, born in 1639, married and died in Yarmouth in 1697. Sacred to the Memory of Daniel Sears, son of Knyvet Sears of Yarmouth born in 1682, married Sarah Hawes and died in Chatham in 1756. Sacred to the Memory of Daniel Sears II son of Daniel Sears of Chatham born in 1712, married Fear Freeman and died at Chatham in 1761. Sacred to the Memory of David Sears I son of Daniel Sears II of Chatham born in 1752, married Ann Winthrop and died in Boston in 1816. An explanation for this plate is given along the bottom edge: ON GRANITE MONUMENTS IN THE GRAVEYARDS OF YARMOUTH, AND CHATHAM, IN MASSACHUSETTS, NEW ENGLAND, IN NORTH AMERICA, ARE THE ABOVE INSCRIPTIONS TO THE MEMORY OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THE SAYERS OF ALDHAM, AND COLCHESTER. 1830.
John Bouchier Sears (1561 – 1629)
is your 11th great grandfather
Son of John Bouchier
Son of Richard
Son of Silas
Daughter of Silas
Daughter of Sarah
Daughter of Sarah
Daughter of Mercy
Son of Martha
Son of Abner
Son of Daniel Rowland
Son of Jason A
Son of Ernest Abner
am the daughter of Richard Arden
Much Ado About Satan
December 21, 2012
I believe that the South Park gay Satan may be the strongest projection of our collective image of evil outside of ourselves. While Rocky’s Fearless Leader worked for the cold war, gay Satan breaking up with Saddam Hussein is the right farce for now (ridiculous). Of course the U S Marines were grateful to have the footage to force gay Saddam to watch his South Park episodes. (Semper Fi). If somehow you were captured by Marines in your dreams, which episode of South Park would they force you to watch?
I admire the ability to use irony as torture. John McCain has data that proves torture by old fashioned methods did not yield useful information. John McCain is my own state’s expert on torture, as he ably demonstrated with his own ironic choice of running mates. Our intelligence community, as they are known, often think outside the intelligence. If you meet them please have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste.
Event Planning: End of the World for Americans
December 19, 2012
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The American Dream of EOW is like all things in our world. It ironically stars Charlton Heston as the celebrity Head Horseman of the Appocalypse. All attention is given to sets, costumes, and rehearsals. While wildly distracted with what you will be wearing to Armegeddon you completely ignored the fact that the Anti Christ is your banker. You failed to see the signs of impending doom even when the horses of the Appocolypse thundered down Wall Street, veered off to the Jersey Shore, then set up a camp in Connecticutt. Denial cum negligence.
Notice that the Catholic Church, blazing a trail into excellent customer service for those who desire express service at this important time , has set up the @Pontifex twitter account. The NRA, a religious institution of massive power in the US, is taking a look at being open to the idea (a vitriolic debate about) of banning assault weapons for casual use. Congress is redesigning itself as a newly reborn baby dysfunction, while the world knows the political power in Washington resides on K street, so it hardly matters who goes to Capitol Hill. There is not even a flimsy disguise of that fact.
The folly in all of this is that it is based on not only ignoring reality (the negligence part), but also on the belief that human beings will cast, costume, write, direct, and produce the EOW. Ask your local Jehovah’s Witness. They can tell you, as they have been, what the Bible says about this particular subject. It is their specialty. They have a boutique religion for EOW, preparing all the Witnesses for the eventual probability that they will not even be in the rapture group. If the EOW is handled with the style and grace to which my fellow Americans have become accustomed, the USA will truly miss a once in a lifetime opportunity to go out representing liberty and justice for all.
Just as a hypothetical question, what are you planning to wear? The Swiss have practical advice. They say that the last suit has no pockets. They mean that you will not be taking your CHF to the rapture, because a new kind of value will be established that is superior even to Swiss Francs. Imagine that. The guys below are not only well dressed, but they have a full explanation for everything. This is the special season in which we can ask not,” Are you ready for Christmas?”, but “Are you ready to meet your maker?”
Redefining Wealth
December 17, 2012
— 3 Comments
If you have a mortgage on your home chances are good that a redefinition of your family’s wealth has swept through your reality. To evaluate risk you might have made the assessment that your home was a good investment. You might have accepted that without question and without comparison to liquid investments. You might have purchased your home during the wild and crazy time when the banks were riding high on the fake valuation they gave your home. You might have thought, like the banks did, that there would never be any reckoning for this obvious inflation of the truth. This harsh reality may feel like a purposeful fraud that was executed on you without your participation. The question to ask is ” Did I convince the bank I could afford this, or did the bank convince me?” It does not matter.
What will make a meaningful difference is learning discernment from this kind of tragic error. The Elephant and Donkey Show is now at the point of considering taxing more heavily citizens of the US who make more than a million bucks a year. I am so all over that if they tax the living daylights out of that group, and actually take their immunity through loophole out of the game. While the world watches America is hosting an epidemic of poverty and lawlessness that make some people believe the anti Christ is the American Dream. Since Viet Nam the US has been sporting bravado rather than ethics. Being the greatest country in the world does not involve more spin and PR than real greatness. It involves adding value and kindness to the world by educating and caring for your own citizens.
William Learned, Patrimony and Patriarchy of the Puritans
December 6, 2012
— 2 Comments
signatures on marriage contract
We know a lot about the life of my 12th great grandfather who arrived in Boston harbor to begin his new Puritan life in 1630. He was censured by the Puritans for defending a woman who held Bible studies in her home for both men and women. He had to retract his support for Anne Hutchinson under threat of having his gun taken from him. His brief touch with feminist sentiments and freewheeling seditious non conformity and Antinomianism were censured by his Puritan piers. The crazy religious infighting that created Rhode Island and Maine is not a well known part of the story of our founding fathers. Here is the story of one of my ancestors who arrived very early on the shores of North America:
BIRTH William was born circa 1581 in Bermondsey, Surrey, England[1], as based upon his date of marriage. DEATH & BURIAL He died in Woburn, Middlesex co., MA on 1 March 1645/6; he was 64[2,3]. MIGRATION & RESIDENCE William and his family migrated to New England by 1630[1], where he was admitted as an inhabitant of Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA that year[3,6,7]. “William Learned and Goodith his wife” were admitted to the church at Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA on 6d:10m(December):1632[1,6]. He made Freeman there on 14 May 1634[1,4]. William and his family remained in Charlestown for roughly a decade — he is on the lists of Charlestown residents of 9 January 1633/4 and January 1635/6[3,8]. Then, they removed to Woburn, Middlesex co., MA in 1640[1]. In Charlestown, William acquired and divested a great deal of real estate. In 1635, he was allotted two shares of hayground, which was subsequently increased to three[1,12], and he surrendered 5 acres on the Mystic Side[1,11]. On 13 January 1636/7 the Charlestown selectmen “agreed to allow Goodman Learned a portion of marsh by his house agreed upon by Goodman Richeson & Goodman W[illia]m Baker for his haylot by Mr. Gibbon’s which he yieldeth up to the town”[1,17]. In 1637, he had a 10-acre lot (number 7 on the Mystic Side)[6], and another 5 acres of land on the Mystic Side[1,13]. In addition, “W[illia]m Lernett” had 3.75 cow commons that year[1,14]. In the Mystic Side allotments of 23 April 1638 he received portions of 15, 40 and 5 acres[1,15]. Thus, in the 1638 Charlestown Book Of Possessions, “William Lernett” had 7 parcels of land: three acres of arable land and meadow, along with a dwelling house next to the “Olde Meeting House”; four acres arable land in the East Field; 3.75 cow commons; two acres of meadow in the Mystic Marshes; five acres of woods in the Mystic Field; fifteen acres of woods in the Mystic Field next to the Common; and forty acres of land in the Rock Field[6,9,10]. The 3.75 cow commons were further noted in an inventory of 20 December 1638[1,16]. TOWN SERVICE & EDUCATION William signed the petition on 10 February 1634/5 which established the office of the Selectman in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[3,20]. He himself served as Selectman in 1636[1,19]. On 26 April 1638, William was named to the Charlestown committee “to consider of some things tending towards a body of laws &c”. Anderson uses this as evidence of his higher education level[1,18]. LEGAL MENTION On 16 November 1637 “Will[iam] Larnet acknowledged his fault in subscribing the seditious writing [in favor of Rev. John Wheelwright], & desiring his name to [be] crossed out, it was yielded his, & crossed”[3,5]. The case of the Reverend John Wheelwright involved the Antinomian movement of the 1630s in the Boston Area. Bucking church authority was a part of Wheelwright’s nature, it would seem. Whilst a preacher in England, he was censured for non-conformity for his embrasure of Puritan sentiments. After arriving in Boston, Suffolk co., MA in 1636, he was soon suspected of following the Antinomian tenets proposed by his sister-in-law, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. Thus, he was censured again, this time by the Puritan government under Governor John Winthrop after delivering a sermon at Mount Wollaston (now Quincy), Norfolk co., MA, disfranchised and banished. Unlike most Antinomian banishees, he went north to Maine instead of south to Rhode Island. Ever the contrarian… Wheelwright was forgiven in the 1650s when the hysteria over Antinomianism wore off. MARRIAGE #1 On 22 April 1606 when William was 25, he first married Goodith GILMAN, in St. Olave, Southwark, Surrey, England[2,3,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36]. Goodith died sometime after 1632 in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[3]. It is worth noting that “Goodith” is neither a corruption of “Goodwife” nor “Judith”, as has been proposed in several books, but her given name in its own right[3]. MARRIAGE #2 After 1632 when William was 51, he second married Jane [surname not known], in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[2,22,37,38]. This marriage is also in the Malden, Middlesex co., MA vital records (they lived in the section of that town which later became Woburn, Middlesex co., MA) with the bride’s name given as “Sarah”. This name change stayed with her, either as a chronic mistake or as a preferred name of hers, for when Jane died on 24 January 1660/1 in Woburn, Middlesex co., MA[3,39,40] she was listed as “Sarah [sic] Learned widow”. In March of 1660/1, the “inventory of the estate of the widow Jane Learned deceased in Malden” was taken. Administration was granted to Ralph Shepard on 2 April 1661[3,39,40].
This is how I am related to him:
William Learned (1590 – 1645)
is my 12th great grandfather
Sarah Learned (1604 – 1652)
Daughter of William
Mary Ewer (1637 – 1693)
Daughter of Sarah
Mehitable Jenkins (1655 – 1684)
Daughter of Mary
Isaac Hamblin (1676 – 1710)
Son of Mehitable
Eleazer Hamblin (1699 – 1771)
Son of Isaac
Sarah Hamblin (1721 – 1814)
Daughter of Eleazer
Mercy Hazen (1747 – 1819)
Daughter of Sarah
Martha Mead (1784 – 1860)
Daughter of Mercy
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
Son of Martha
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
Son of Abner
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
Son of Daniel Rowland
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
Son of Jason A
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
Son of Ernest Abner
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden
Governor Lost and Found
December 6, 2012
— 2 Comments
Gov. Jan Brewer of my home state put on her high-heeled sneakers, and that ever-present wig hat on her head to sneak out to Afghanistan. This was done presumably to brighten the holidays for AZ National Guard troops stationed there…..as IF…..her presence was so exciting it is worth it to all to export it. Troops used to get Bob Hope, Raquel Welch,and lots of A list stars to light up their holidays.
I am politically torn on this one. Although I loathe the Barry Goldwater style move that this seems to be, and as a true conservative deplore the expenditure of public money, I do so want to export her to someplace far from here. I am also fully in favor of her putting herself more in harm’s way than even Phoenix can offer. If she had paid for it herself and used her vacation days I would say, “Vaya con Dios. Stay for a while.” In Spanish la gobernadora is luz de la calle, oscuridad de la casa (light of the street, darkness of the home). We had a lovely Gov Jan Napolitano who was imported to DC for the security of the homeland while we replaced her with a shadow governor.
In this woman’s mind it makes sense to deny hispanic youth dreamers the right to obtain drivers licenses. If they have the nerve to drive they will be doing so without insurance, a very unappealing idea for anyone driving through the state. If we gave them drivers licenses we would not only acknowledge them with some dignity, we would enhance the chances that they might find employment. In Arizona we graduate only 25% of English learner high school students in the state. We have few legal jobs but an abundance of easy fast (read instant) careers in crime that will have a rapid turnover. That turnover feeds our for profit prison system, a big player in the new normal economy of Arizona. It is easy to see how granting the right to legally drive to the dreamer is a slippery slope that could be disruptive to the current crime for profit model we have for growing our economy.
Consumption as Culture
December 3, 2012
— 2 Comments
Who is in charge of the decisions you make about consumption? Do your values ever influence what you buy?
