Tag Archive for society

Good News About Cancer

For anyone who has a loved one suffering with the physical, mental, and emotional trauma of cancer, or who is suffering themselves or in fear of it, the American Cancer Society has given us some good news. Not a cure–yet–but something to give us hope. Here’s what the Society found:

  1. The rate of people dying from cancer has continued to decline for 25 years.
  2. Between 1991 (peak cancer deaths) and 2016, there have been an estimated 2.6 million fewer deaths from cancer.
  3. These declines are being seen in breast, lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers.

They attribute it to three major factors: people are smoking less, cancer is being detected earlier, and treatments are improving.

Get more current details at the Society’s article Facts & Figures 2019: US Cancer Death Rate has Dropped 27% in 25 Years

Why Give Pets to Prisoners?

I just read an article about various prisons running programs in which neglected, abandoned, or abused dogs are assigned to the care of prisoners rather than being housed in shelters.  These people foster the animals, caring for them, training them, and teaching them to trust humans again. Eventually the dogs are ready to move on, into loving adoptive families.

There is a corollary to the successful rehabilitation of the dogs.  The prisoners, many of whom are felons due, in great part, to the fact that they, too, grew up neglected, abandoned, or abused, have a revival of their compassion and sense of responsibility.  In that way, they are being rehabilitated, just like their waggly wards.  Isn’t that what the prison system is supposed to do?  Many of these individuals, once released, find jobs in dog grooming, training, and care.  Others have refreshed their work ethic and determination to find and do well at a job.

These programs at any prison are small (maybe 20 pup/prisoner teams) but effective.  Unlike some other people, I don’t consider this being soft on crime.  Rather, I think it’s taking what is good in a person who has done bad and putting it to a use that is beneficial to our animal friends while giving him or her a fighting chance to reintegrate into society rather than re-offending.  I, for one, think that’s a good thing.

How Societies and Governments will be Judged

The Thursday Thought for today comes from a man whose philosophy and achievements are celebrated today, Cesar Chavez:

“History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.”

 

 

Good Will Toward…All?

This is appropriate for Thoughtful Thursday AND this season of good will:

“No society of nations, no people within a nation, no family can benefit through mutual aid unless good will exceeds ill will; unless the spirit of cooperation surpasses antagonism; unless we all see and act as though the other man’s welfare determines our own welfare. ” —  Henry Ford

 

 

New Life in a Hostile World

Today, I watched a person begin a new life.  I first knew him when he was in my high school English class, far more interested in the girl sitting next to him than in the heroine of the novel I was trying to teach.  Now, after many years in prison, he is free again.  The first thing he did was to thank God for his freedom.  Then he went to the cemetery to visit loved ones whose funerals he couldn’t attend.  He arrived at my house around 11:30 to thank my husband and me for never losing faith in him and keeping in touch..and to play with the dog, which he’d longed to do for a long time.  After a short visit he was off to Los Angeles to his temporary home with the sisters at The Francisco Homes.

He spent his time Inside finishing his B.A. and taking other correspondence courses in Bible and theology.  He was active in his Chapel and refused to take part in any violence, including declining to strike back either the time he was stabbed or the time he was beaten.  He made it a point to help other inmates and to be a peacemaker between races.  In short, he spent his years growing up, trying to atone for his crime, and learning to be a responsible, caring adult.

Is he a saint?  Of course not.  He did something bad, and he served the time the judge gave him.  When family and friends dropped off, as they almost always do after a year or so, he made new ones through letters.  Those of us in contact with him saw the changes he made, all for the good.

The point is, he’ll have a hard time out here, adjusting to technology that is new to him, making new friends who can get over their fear of ex-cons to get to know him, recovering from sticker-shock when he shops, getting a permanent place to live, getting a job, living a free, law abiding life.

People like him are often shunned by our society.  They’re feared, looked down on, avoided.  We certainly don’t want our kids around them, even if their crime was not related to children or sex.  But why?  All of us have experienced the good luck of getting away with speeding, hit-and-run (not sticking around when scratching a car), theft (absent-mindedly not paying for something in the basket), disturbing the peace, tax fraud (fudging on tax returns)—all sorts of things.  These people may have done worse, but, unlike us, they got caught.  Now we pass judgment on them that’s worse than the court imposed.  We forget that they, too, are part of our human family and, as such, their lives have worth, especially those who are working hard at doing right.

I wish my friend luck, because he’ll need it.  For the rest of us, I wish expressions of patience, compassion, and, yes, a little basic Golden-Rule love.