Alone

     Are you stranded on a deserted island?  Are you in solitary confinement, imprisoned because of misdeeds?  Are you a prisoner  of war?  Are you a refugee who has fled from a dangerous home?  Are you confined to a hospital bed fighting for your life?  Are you an orphan, widow, or widower?  Are you really alone?
      Remember or imagine before computers, iPhones, and TVs were invented when landlines, radio, snail mail, and paper newspapers were the primary ways to communicate other than face to face?  What about books as a way to look into the minds of others?
      Actually, everyone is alone inside their own body and within their own mind.  Nature around you presents mostly good things for human survival.  Nature also creates mutations, some within the human body and some that invade the human body which at times has a difficult time adjusting.  These mutations can occur anywhere in the world when certain conditions present themselves.  Medical science can often help.
     Many people believe supernatural forces can help.  They also believe that the great supernatural force created nature and answers pleas for help.  This is a comfort for many.
     Take time to think deeply into your beliefs.  Also consider why you have the opinions that you do.  Have you been manipulated to have extreme likes and dislikes?  Consider what you have instead of what you don't have.  Realize the freedoms you have instead of the freedoms that have been curtailed.  Use the time you have in beneficial ways.
     Stay healthy and survive.       
     

The Book of Gutsy Women

     
     All around the world for many centuries, women have had the courage and resilience "that made the world a better place."  Hillary and Chelsea Clinton present stories featuring both famous women and some not so well known; however, all deserve to have their stories told.  Eleven categories include a multitude of women: Early Inspirations like Helen Keller and Anne Frank; Education Pioneers like Maria Montessori and Joan Ganz Cooney; Earth Defenders like Rachel Carson and Jane Goodall; Explorers and Inventors like Sally Ride and Marie Curie; Healers like Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton; Athletes like Venus and Serena Williams; Advocates like Eleanor Roosevelt and Gabby Giffords; Storytellers like Maya Angelou and and Ali Stroker; Elected Leaders like Bella Abzug and Barbara Mikulski; Groundbreakers like Katharine Graham and Ellen DeGeneres; Women's Rights Champions like the Suffragists and Fraidy Reiss.

     "Throughout history and around the globe, women have overcome some of the toughest and cruelest resistance imaginable from physical violence and intimidation to a total lack of legal rights or recourse, in order to redefine what is considered a woman's place."  "Ensuring the rights, opportunities, and full participation of all women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century."

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

                                                                                                                                                                                   
     In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, formerly know as Ludwig Eisenberg, "was just one among countless young men stuffed into wagons designed to transport livestock."  They were taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps.  For two and a half years, he endures this horrible prison and survives by being a Tatowierer.  During that time, he meets Gita, and they fall in love.  He tells his fellow prisoners, "I don't know what fate lies in store for any of us."  "He thinks back to the vow he made at the beginning.  To survive and to see those responsible pay."
     Lale tells Gita, "How any merciful god could let this happen, I don't know."  "I believe in you and me, and getting out of here, and making a life together..."  Gita tells Lale that he "will honor them (those who suffered and died) by staying alive, surviving this place and telling the world what happened here."
     And that is what happened.  The Nazis were defeated.  Lale and Gita married in 1945 and many years later had a son Gary.  He asked his mother how she handled later challenges in life.  "With a big smile on her face she said that when you spend years not knowing if in five minutes' time you will be dead, there is not much that you can't deal with."
     In his later years, Lale finally told his story to author Heather Morris.
 

The Show

     Give them what they want.  The main event, the Super Bowl, gives us male strength, agility, and controlled violence.  Halftime is a break from all that.  Music and dance is in the spotlight.  The girls give us what we want.  We hear upbeat sounds and see feminine moves that highlight their strengths.
     What does football give us?  That is another topic.  What did the show give us?

Offense Plus Defense Plus Fans

 

     Many sports teams have two parts: the offense and the defense.  The offense takes possession of the ball and tries to move closer to the goal and score points.  When the other team has the ball, the defense tries to find their weaknesses, counter their progress, and repossess the ball.
     Communication also has two similar parts.  When we speak and write, we usually have a goal in mind and want to make a point, to present an idea, to win an "argument."   When we listen and read, we have to recognize the opposition, see their strengths and weaknesses, and protect our position.  We use offensive and defensive strategies to prove our ideas are stronger and closer to the truth.
     Teams benefit from fans who support and cheer them on as they show their offensive and defensive skills.  We hope our team is stronger and victorious over the the opposing team.  When we speak and write, we have possession of the ball and have our chance to make points.  When people listen to and read what we say, they may agree and become our fans or disagree.  A good communicator needs to speak to those who easily agree and to those who need to be persuaded to change their minds.
     As you support your favorite team, notice the offensive and defensive strategies.  As you communicate, remember to make your point to both your fans and your opposition.
     
 

Educated: A Memoir

     Tara Westover grew up in a rural Idaho family that didn't send its children to school or take them to a doctor.  Her father dominated the family with his extreme beliefs and exaggerated interpretation of the Bible.  Her mother went along with these beliefs while becoming a herbalist and a midwife. Some of Tara's siblings continued to live a similar life.  Some broke away and moved on, but Tara began a long and difficult journey to another life.
     She wrote in her journal, "It's strange how you give the people you love so much power over you."  Nevertheless, Tara began studying and learning how to think for herself.  She read about negative liberty - the freedom from external obstacles and about positive liberty - the freedom from internal constraints, "to be liberated from irrational fears and beliefs, from addictions, superstitions."  She attended many universities and earned advanced degrees. "What is s person to do, I asked, when their obligations to their family conflict with other obligations - to friends, to society, to themselves?"   She became "a changed person, a new self."  "You could call this selfhood many things." "I call it an education."
   

The Handmaid's Tale

   
      In the dystopian society of Gilead, a handmaid wrote down her tale.  The country has been damaged by air, water, and land pollution which caused many of the citizens to to be infertile.  Young fertile women were conscripted to conceive and bear children for the elite upperclass.  The handmaid attire was red, the color of blood, and white wings were on their head piece which limited their vision.
     Commander Frederick Waterford and his wife Serena Joy used Handmaid Offred to try to produce a baby. Before she resided with the Waterfords, she was a young mother named June who was caring for her daughter. That life was abruptly taken from her.  The handmaids "are containers, it's only the insides of our bodies that are important."  We are "two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels."  And so the tale continues.
     Scriptural passages are used to promote the cause, to give credence to the oppressive and unjust treatment of the handmaids. Author Margaret Atwood has said that nothing went into this novel "that had not happened in real life somewhere at sometime."  This story can shed light on past and present issues, and give warning of what could possibly happen in our future.