Tag Archive for damage

Maybe Our Lent Should Be Changed

Many people observe Lent.  It’s a great shot in the rump for our weight-control, which is what many of us use it for.  We give up sweets and snacks, hoping to reduce our body-weight.  This year, let’s concentrate on reducing a different kind of weight in our world, the damaging heaviness of violence, shown in unkindness, hostility, cruelty, disrespect, and selfishness.  The Institute for Peace and Justice has developed a “Pledge of Nonviolence” we can adopt as an individual, family, or group of any sort.  With it, we promise to 1) respect self and others, 2) communicate better, 3) listen, 4) forgive, 5) respect nature, 6) play creatively, and 7) be courageous. All are perfect Lenten activities.  Then, when people ask that old question, “What did you give up for Lent?” you can answer, “I gave up being a cause of violence in my world.”

 

Do You Know this About Your Car Insurance?

I learned the hard way.  I thought I was covered and financially protected from bad guys.  Not quite true.

I came out of a store, loaded with groceries, only to find that someone had damaged my car.  There was no note, and no culprit in site.  A hit-and-run.  My insurance agent said No problem–it’s  covered and, since it wasn’t my fault, I wouldn’t have to pay the deductible.  He was wrong.

Apparently, because there wasn’t any other person to blame it on, the insurance company had no other person or insurance company to go after to pay for the damage.  Since my company had to pay, they charged me the  deductible (which is pretty hefty).  And this practice is true throughout the insurance industry.

Not your fault, but you have to pay.  Be warned.

Still Fresh in Our Minds After 79 Years

The ultimate example of man’s inhumanity to man was put to an end 72 years ago today, when Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, was liberated.  It imprisoned people who were torn from their families and lives simply because they were Jewish.  It was a place of unspeakable conditions, torture, and death.  It used human beings for ghastly experiments because, after all, these weren’t people  in the Nazi mind but sub-humans, so it didn’t matter if they suffered.  Some 200,000 people were able to leave the camp, but not without physical, emotional, and spiritual damage that has lasted even to today for the roughly 100,000 still alive.

Auschwitz is still fresh in our minds after 79 years on this anniversary day and, to many, every day.  As it should be–so that we never allow that to happen to any group of people ever again.

 

 

Be Happier–Burn Your Newspaper

News is bad for us, it seems.  It’s toxic to our bodies, causes us to make mistakes, inhibits our thinking, acts like a drug, kills our creativity, and does much more damage to us.  This is according to The Guardian.   Read  “News is Bad for You,” which gives an interesting perspective on the news.  Then you may just want to burn–or at least cancel–your newspaper.

 

 

Interesting Fact re: Abuse, Children, and Mothers

According to  Steven Stosny, PhD (founder of CompassionPower), research has revealed an interesting fact: Children who grow up watching their mothers being abused are not only damaged but even more damaged than if they’re abused themselves.

Seems like common sense.  But maybe scientific proof will sink into the minds of abusers who love their children.  And prompt more people who observe such abuse to report it for the sake of the child.