Well, I can find the place to write again. I have to work on my exercises. I mailed the book to my friend and picked up a package from the Post Office, and got a ball, and I hope the ball is the right size. Koraling Llynne .

Flexibility

I attended a great webinar on work place flexibility. It was great. If there is anything I am passionate about, it is flexibility on all levels. The modern stress factors, and the fact that one out of every 2 people will be caring for an older parent or family member or neighbor in the next five years was astounding. It's not just about working moms, but older workers, two-income families, and increased stress and I loved it because telework and telecommuting were discussed as well as different locations to work during the year, shorter work week, and differnet options for time off during the day to attend to responsibilities. There is less time for ourselves, and for spouses, and relationships are suffering. It's about understanding your employee and their needs which leads to greater productivity and morale. I heard about work-sharing and work-family balance in industrial social work classes twenty years ago. Now they speak about work/family merge or integration. Koraling Lynne This was sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management.

anger and forgiveness

I just want to have less anger and blame, shame and all that. I have said this before. Calling people names of the four-letter variety or five-letter and especially preying on women, people of color, disabled people, and other people is not about just spirituality but also about trauma-informed therapy or EMDR, and I don't know what the letter stand for basically. I believe in questioning, flexibility, options, interdependence, inclusion, wrap-around services, and counseling, coaching and consulting. Threating, fear does not work. As Doug Stephan said and a modern thinker Jay Kumar said that gratitude, and growth, and possibility is better than fear and collapsing with opportunity. When folks shut down conversation and topics become much less possible, why be in a relationship of that kind? I've had it with that sort of "my way or the highway." Listening is not valued any more. Face-to-face conversation has been replaced by other forms of communication with texting, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedein. Oh, my. Anyway, things should be much more loving, interconnected, forgiving, etc. Koraling Lynne

language

Sometimes, my husband speak about things such as his health and the like, and he says his back is okay, but not when he lays down. That is a contradiction. Today, he just does that and last night also where he does not understand why I don't understand, and he says he has mellowed out. Maybe he has. Anyway, today, on a transportation committee call with American Council of the Blind, language si so important. Giving proper feedback is important. The tags in our organic brain are interesting. The premise seemed to say that in accessibility of the built environment, using paratransit is not independence, and moving from there to a fixed route or pedestrian access. It is not linear, and you can use both fixede route and paratransit, and it is about choice. They did not like choice either. I can't remember why, but one of the participants gave a good title. We have been e-mailing about survey monkey which I commented on here about before. Many governmental and non-profits use that as their web-based survey creation site of choice. Language and access are so much a part of what needs to be done these days. Koraling Lynne

orientation and mobility

I spoke to my friend Peggy at the VA who along with two others (a mobility instructor) and a blind person, and Peggy did not know if I could walk down a hall. I used to do that stuff, but I have become scared which is crazy. I tried to learn, but Peggy is moving her location, and might not have been there today. I explained how one could tell about how narrow a hall was, how wide and how shore-lining was used to count openings. To approach something and to know it is there is the opposite of avoidance with a dog guide. Anyway, we'll see about the poodle, and whether I can really walk well enough. I'm just not sure any more. Koraling Lynne

a circle comes round again

On Sunday, I saw part of "Love Leads the Way" a Disney movie on www.mytvland.net and I cried when the dog became ill, because it reminded me of Merry, my last dog guide. It took so many times to get laws that would allow public access to dog guides because of businesses who did not understand. When a crowd or group does not know about service animals or dog guides, it is time to educate them, and not be complacent, as Eric Pepin, my spiritual teacher, said in a class yesterday focused on world events. I become so disappointed in people's attitudes and their rigidity. I like enthusiastic, giving, caring, people. Open people and as dad says a universal love fest or love-in. Small-minded and petty people have no time in this harried, crazy existence. Honestly, when I had dogs with neighbors, I did not have these problems. I never had a service animal, though. I just had dog guides. Hesper and Ragu barked some, but Fennel and Merry rarely barked at all. koraling Lynne

Another draft to fix

I saw Love Leads the Way about the first Seeing Eye dog and Morris Frank in Memphis. He was adventitiously blinded from an accident. I cried when Buddy, his dog was in pain reminding me of Merry. In 1936, a law was passed to allow dog guides to enter the public sphere. It is not any differnet than access to African-Americans, disabled folk gay people and the like. We must value all people. We must not suppress any ideas. The political ads now which talk about freedom and how people should be free to just allow straight people and deny gay people employment or housing is no different than business can discriminate against women, disabled folk, just change the word. I detest that kind of politics where black is white, and white is black. Freedom is another word for someone who wants to justify their racist, homophobic, anti-woman rhetoric. Self-defense if you feel (not that you know) someone who is young or another race is going to attack you, so you kill that person? The Southern Poverty Law Center speaks about the rise of violence since President Obama has been elected. I don't like many of his policies, but it is not about his race. My God, will we ever change? We think that able-bodied people are better, smarter, more competent, have more information, are quicker than a disabled person. Look past your foggy thinking at who people are, not your prejudices which bog you down in religious dogma and your interpretation of the Bible. I respect that you may have the right to deny women birth control, but not when you deny someone's right to speak and call her a "slut" Thanks for listening. I don't want to offend anyone, and I have problems with intolerant people. When I was about 13, Gerald Mack said he hateed most "toleration" a "tolerance" which was still pretty racist to him as a blind, African-American who I went to school with. I was teased about being Jewish as a teen-ager because people did not understand it. Fear, hubris, greed, spoils, plunder, these are things we must work on because equality is what we should value.