Being thankful

When I created this t-shirt/coffee mug slogan, it was based on an email that went around listing the promises girlfriends should make to each other. A nice departure from cute teddies and hearts and sloppy messages doing the email rounds. I have girlfriends who would at least give me a virtual slap for not taking care of myself and I think they are the best kind of friends to have. They stand by you in the tough times, but when you are whining or being stupid, they tell you so with no punches pulled. Of course, you get to return the compliment when they whine!

It reminded me that Thanksgiving is coming up in the States next week. When I first moved to America, Thanksgiving was just a couple of days off school and work. We were somewhat isolated as it is a holiday that involves families and togetherness and as a family of foreigners we watched with some confusion the turkey feasts that went on around us. Later, as we were adopted by various families, I came to appreciate just how nice this holiday is.

Okay it’s a bit hinky because it is only a month away from Christmas and there you are eating turkey. Most Americans thought we were a bit weird to eat turkey at Christmas, but there we were facing two massive bird eating rituals within a month. But it’s not the bird that you need to consider.

What is great about Thanksgiving is the concept. You get together with friends and family and eat well. There are no gifts to stress about and the food is not too much work as inevitably,  people bring a contribution to the feast. It ties in with nature in that the food reflects the bounties of the harvest (and perhaps in earlier times, the last feast you would have before the hardships of winter set in). At every Thanksgiving dinner we attended, there was a moment of serious reflection at the table in which everyone got a turn to say what they were thankful for.

Much better than whining because your in-laws are convinced you are a scarf person and just gave you your twentieth scarf for Christmas. Or wishing that Santa had found the wherewithal to put a Playstation 3 in your stocking.

Even though I no longer live in America, I still take the time to be thankful at this time of year. In Johannesburg it is easy. If you listen to 94.7 Highveld stereo in the mornings at this time of year, you’d better have your dark glasses and tissues on standby, because it’s Christmas Wish time.  I like to think of it more as Thanksgiving season. People show their thankfulness for family and friends and sometimes virtual strangers by nominating them. And all of us who listen, even if you are feeling the financial squeeze, realise that we need to be thankful for what we have and the blessings that come our way and fail to recognise. I get so caught up in being grateful, I barely shout at the radio when they say “amount” of wishes instead of  “number” of wishes. For that story click here.

Forget Christmas wish lists and make a Thanksgiving list!

I am thankful for: The boy with two brains, the challenging brilliant girl, the wise cracking family clown, the friends who send me virtual slaps when I whine and virtual hugs when I need them, (I miss laughing so hard around the Thanksgiving table that we all risk choking), the sister who “gets” me, the brother who challenges me creatively, the parents who are always there for us all.

I am thankful to live in a crazy city where the Christmas wish on the radio probably causes several near accidents a day as people blubber and sniff their way to work. Thanks for those tears, they remind me that I am lucky.

Feel like a zombie?

This  October, we are all feeling the pinch of the global economic meltdown, the stupidity of attention seeking parents who use their children as TV bait, and the sheer ludicrousness of the little dung balls of “wisdom” that plop out of a certain Youth leader’s mouth.

It’s in moments like these that I despair for the human race! We live in a country that allows a failed high school student to dictate how they should think – even the president doesn’t get as much air time as this dude does. He decided that the national soccer coach should be fired because the team wasn’t winning games. And LO! Today we get the news that Joel Santana is going (with a platinum handshake). Rumour has it that Carlos Alberto Parreria is going to return (at what cost to the severely struggling tax payers?) But if Julie-baby has his way, Lucas Radebe will be in the unenviable position of being appointed because His Lowness decrees it!

At what point should the population stand up object to the squandering of tax payers money on stuff that doesn’t ultimately benefit the people in need?

Barak Obama gets my sympathy. He is trying his hardest to reform Health Care in the US, but is being met with resistance on all sides.  Our health care innovation in recent times consisted of a minister who advocated root vegetables for HIV treatment.  And now they have sent her off  (probably with a basket of african potatoes, beetroot and garlic like a bloated little red riding hood) to help Caster Semenya. Yikes! If I was Caster, I would be running very very fast in the opposite direction!

There is something somewhat demented in a world that knows a father is an attention-seeking git, yet he and his children get air time on the Larry King show. This after it has emerged that he faked his 6-year old’s peril in a home made hot air balloon, wasted huge amounts of tax dollars on rescue services and is being prosecuted. He should be ignored. By giving him publicity, we are just feeding the beast!

There is something even more demented about a world that wants to send a 6-year old  to a school for troublemakers. Why? Because the cute little dude brought his favourite folding camping cutlery set to school. I can just see him, all bright and shiny and eager to get to school. Ready to show his teacher and friends his most prized possession. Knee jerk reactions from the teacher sent the school board in Christina, Delaware into a tizzy and had them issuing the harsh decree. How dumb can people be?

feel like this?

My kids came home with an interesting fact from school. I don’t know the basis, but it makes sense. They said that despite the recession, candy manufacturers have not been as hard hit as other businesses. It seems that as a low cost item, we still find the money to buy that bag of sweets to make our day a little nicer. With Halloween around the corner, it’s quite heartening to know.

But spare a thought for the poor people of Scotia and Glenville, in upstate New York. This Halloween, they are allowed to go trick-or-treating, but they must be done by 8 pm and porch lights must be OUT by town decree! I kid you not – Check it out here. Makes you wonder if the people of these towns feel a bit like zombies.

Okay, so next time you feel like you are being treated like a brainless automaton – get your zombie shirt out and storm town hall – the only problem being that there are no brains in the building to provide you with sustenance.

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Are you free?

Do you agree?

Not are you in prison?  or  Have you been abducted and kept as a sex slave in a garden shed for umpteen years?

But…

Are you free?

Don’t you think that some are shackled by ideas that keep their minds in chains?

A school in Middle-of-Nowhere, USA has wasted about $700 on t-shirts for their marching band because they depicted the evolution of man as well as the evolution of music. This is one of those daft towns where the school district (yes! Educators who are supposed to be educating!) probably voted not to allow the Theory of Evolution to be taught (or mentioned, or probably even thought about). My favourite stupid quote from the article: “I was disappointed with the image on the shirt. I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”  Reading between the lines: Development of  scientifically based theories, advancement in knowledge and thinking outside the religious box are not allowed in Education!

Can we all scream now?

They don’t want to admit that the origin of mankind can be traced back by science… They deny the theories of Charles Darwin as they feel they clash with the concept of creation depicted in the Bible.

If we follow this argument logically then  South Africa must be one of the most anti-biblical countries in the world. And the World Heritage Sites in the Cradle of Humankind are some sort of pagan conspiracy.

One of my favourite quotations: “Only the educated are free” is attributed to Epictetus – A Greek-born Roman slave and Stoic philosopher… He had to know what he was talking about having experienced slavery and freedom.

If you are educated enough to know that sticking to a narrow mindset will get your brain locked away forever… go back to school and thank the teacher who turned the key that set you free… Mr Malema need not bother.

International Teachers’ Day – 5 October 2009

They brew the right ideas - give them the vessel to prove it!

9/11 – where were you?

Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001.

I was in a PTA meeting in New Jersey, about 30 miles away from the Twin Towers. Prime commuter territory for Manhattan. Shortly after the first plane hit the first Tower, the secretaries from the office rushed into the meeting with the news. At that point in time, everyone thought it was a small plane, and that it was terrible, but not disastrous. There was a fumble for cell phones as most of the mothers in the meeting panicked about their husbands many of whom worked in the financial district.

Sitting two seats away was a woman whose husband had called her: He was in his office on a floor above the crash site. She was not to worry as he was going to get out. He loved her. ..  She is one of the 9/11 widows in that small New Jersey town.

By the time the second plane hit, the meeting had disbanded. The soon to be widow was taken home by a comforting posse of friends. I walked home and found my answer machine full of panicked messages from Africa. Not my parents – they knew I was unlikely to be downtown that early inthe morning – but from friends whose parents had been staying with me. I had forgotten all about them!

These two lovely people had been my house guest for five days while they explored New York. They had been up the Twin Towers two days before. They were on their way to Seattle and I had waved them off at 5:00am that morning as a cab took them off to JFK airport – an hour’s drive and two bridges away from New Jersey. Now no one knew where they were!

The American Airlines Call Centre in Florida was being a bit cagey – no they could not give me any details of the flight. I told them that I was trying to find two retired South African tourists who would truly be stranded if the plane had been forced to land in some godforsaken backwater. I was also concerned that their plane could have been a target plane – a long haul flight full to the gills with lovely combustible aviation fuel, leaving around the right time – perhaps the terrorists were not finished with this campaign? Eventually I asked the right question: Could they tell me if the plane had taken off? The answer – “No – it had not taken off”. Phew! They were stranded on Long Island!

There was no way for me to get hold of them, but eventually they managed to call on a borrowed phone and let me know that they had found a cab, found a hotel room (further away from NYC than the airport) and they were okay. The redoubtable husband had even taken on the airport authorities and insisted on getting his luggage back! A smart move in retrospect as many people had their luggage looted by the kindof human vermin that love chaos. My small crisis had been averted. They never got to go to Seattle or LA or Las Vegas as planned, after 3 days of being stranded, they came back to my house and waited out the travel blackout before returning home.

In our small town there were about 11 dead. But there were also the miracle stories. People who had meetings in one the Towers but had been delayed by traffic or in the case of a close friend had been answer urgent emails in his office in Jersey City and had set out late for the meeting. We all climbed to the top of the highest hill in town and could see the buildings burning… It seemed that no one slept very well – but everyone pitched in. We donated clean socks, bottled water, blankets, food batteries and flashlights to the firefighters who were searching Ground Zero. We extended helping hands to bereaved families. We said many many prayers and wondered if they were heard. This spirit is being remember this year.

9/11 reforged a nation that had been soft and secure and complacent. Friends were shocked when I mentioned that they had experienced in one excruciating day what the rest of the world had suffered for decades.  They had not considered themselves in that light.

The mood in America became very nationalistic, and not necessarily for the good. A few years later, once the war in Iraq had started, my proudly South African flag I hung outside my house as an ironic counterpoint to all the star-spangled banners, was ripped down, as was my flag holder. I felt violated and angry and also sad that a fight I had not entered into had made an impact on my freedom.

Eight years on – I hope that Obama manages to get American troops out of the middle east, because it is impossible to heal while the wound is kept open.

It’s a dog’s life

puppy pals

Having recently seen Marley and Me and having forgotten to take a wad of kleenex into the movie with me,  I ended up with seriously puffy eyes and a renewed appreciation for our canine friends. One of the lines in the movie struck such a chord, and although I cannot recite it verbatum, the idea has been stuck to my soul ever since. The concept that the love of a dog is perhaps one of the most amazingly self less relationships on the planet. They just want to be appreciated (and fed) and give a whole lot of slobbering devotion back.

Why then do hideous humans use these animals to make a quick buck? A recent TV expose of puppy mills showed the world how depraved these individuals are. Female dogs are kept in unbelievably squalid conditions and are required to produce litter after litter to feed the demand for “cute” puppies in pet stores. You pay hundreds, sometimes thousands for these bundles of “pedigree” fluff and later discover that your purebred is a “pavement special”. Not that Pavement Specials are not special, but the fraudulent claims of pedigree are wrong and puppy mills are stomach churningly gruesome.

The Wet Nose Animal Rescue Centre has rescued many dogs and puppies from the most inhumane conditions. They are in the process of legally challenging the creatures that perpetrate these disgusting practices, but in the meantime they have to keep going, feeding all the animals they have rescued and finding loving homes for them. Supporting the organisation should not be too much of a trial.

If you want to read about the visit to the puppy mill go to the wetnose site and read their news article on the visit: http://www.wetnose.org.za/news.php?action=view&pk=24. I was overwhelmed with a desire to force this barbaric cretin to live like his dogs for a month or more. This is a man who does not appreciate the value of a wet nose, big puppy eyes and an wagging tail.

Put your money where your heart is and buy a wetnose t-shirt, coffeemug or laptop skin from Howling mad. A portion of every sale goes to Wet Nose, and they get publicity every time you wear it, drink from it at the office, or take your laptop out and about!

While we might be HOWLING MAD – we like to howl in the right direction…especially when puppy farmers make us mad!  So howl for all the dogs caught in the snares of unscrupulous breeders and support Wet Nose!

The tough side of dog abuse

Howlingmad is a state of mind

When choosing a name for our company, going with something that exemplifies our general state of mind was a no-brainer. We are considered slightly off-the-wall by most people who know us.

Maybe because we regularly ambush our accountant,  have office wars with nerf guns, or test out potato cannons on a Friday afternoon. Reading this, you might think there is an unhealthy prevalence for violence in the howlingmad world. In reality, it is an addiction to laughing and not wanting to lose the inner child. Let’s face it, kids just love a good bit of destruction.

Wearing t-shirts with social commentary or silly comments on them is a particularly child-like activity.  Whether you are being offensive, commenting on current affairs or just wearing your own art because you can.  For those who want to send a daily message to the world – coffee mugs are the way to go. My particular favourite at the moment is the super zombie club  design… a must for all the corporate worker bees out there who are teetering on the edge of redundancy while working like slaves to keep their bosses in greedilicious bonuses.